Samantha and the Golden Boy
by Copper Hikari
Summary: Fifteen-year-old Sam takes her life into her own hands when she moves away from Saffron City to live with her sister in Goldenrod, leaving behind their abusive father and starting fresh. All she actually does is run head-long into a conflict between three kids and their Pokemon, and another dimension full of soulless abominations that want to destroy us. Woah.
1. Be Still

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

- "Be Still."

The world rushed past me, racing at a clip through countrysides and cityscapes, bringing my old self to my new home.

'Old self' is a bit of an overstatement. I'm fifteen years old at the moment. The Boss had a habit of looking at the pimples on my cheeks, then down to the waistline on my torn jeans that was growing tighter all the time, and saying I would wake up one day looking thirty, at best. He's part of why I left, why I abandoned that negativity and came to live with my sister. Though I can't say I was entirely over the Boss, what happened at school, or a whole slew of other things. So yeah, I was bringing my old self to a new home.

Long-winded, I know. I can be like that.

The seat across from me had remained empty for the last hour of the train ride, but I was still reluctant to put my feet up. The ticket-collector lady had glowered at me with these eyebrows that suggested she could break me in two without so much as a second thought, and I was not about to give a reason. That's part of my philosophy.

Or maybe I have a series of philosophies. They all amount to the same thing: speak softly and carry a big stick. Though I never carried a stick, would not know where to purchase said stick, and would prefer to keep that little bit to myself.

The ticket-collector lady had started walking back, this time with a stack of thick papers. She handed a wad of them to the family of four seated across the aisle, topping it off with a smile and a dose of Goldenrod City hospitality.

She gave me the death stare, one handout she crumpled a bit with her mammoth grip, and kept on moving.

The family put the papers aside and went on speaking with one another. I couldn't hear them—I had done enough traveling to know how valuable a good pair of headphones can be—but I felt them watching me. This was routine, too. Just another family, with a bright-eyed little boy and his baby sister, both sets of eyes staring and wondering where this strange girl's parents are. Where are her parents? Maybe she's visiting her grandmother, or maybe she's the daughter of one of the train staff. That's it: she's the ticket-collector lady's little girl, and they're having a fight over what to make for dessert. Mom wants huckleberry pie, but the girl with the pizza face wants, well, more pizza.

I hunched over the duffel bag in my lap, bent my legs tighter around the seat.

'Immigration papers', the page read in bold letters.

Then, underneath: 'Welcome to Johto! Our fine nation is home to many creatures, which we call Pokemon.'

I wondered who had never seen a Pokemon before, until I remembered I fit that description myself until about a month ago.

'Now, tell us about yourself,' the form went on. 'Are you a boy? Or a girl?'

I put the page down. Kanto and Johto had some weird political alliance I didn't really understand, something amounting to dual citizenship? Hannelore got it all sorted out before I got on the train. I just had to pack my bags and get out before the Boss could throttle me as hard as humanly possible.

The train pulled into the Goldenrod City station with as much grace and fluidity as it had shown the rest of the trip. We stopped without so much as a stutter. The seat belt sign went off, the family of four released their seat belts at approximately the same time, and it was too late to turn back now.

I picked up my bag, kept my headphones in their battle-ready position, and stepped out onto the platform.

When they said each city in Johto had a name related to its color, they were not kidding. Goldenrod City, from where I stood, looked literally paved in gold. Even though this was only a few days after the new year and my Saffron State hoodie was needed now more than ever, watching the radiant skyline felt somewhat like baking in the sun on a hot day.

I checked the time on my phone. Two in the afternoon. Right in the middle of the day, meaning right in the middle of traffic. The family of four wandered toward the rental car lot, led by the father figure with his brisk gait and fatherly figure, the wife at his side and two tater-tots trotting behind. I almost felt bad for them until I saw the bodyguard-looking guy standing by his black car, which all things considered looked more like a hearse.

He held a single sheet of paper, two familiar words stretching across his chest.

"You're not my sister," I said jokingly.

He didn't budge.

"Get it?" I continued. "The sign says 'Hannelore Hutchinson', but you're not her, you're this buff guy with ominous sunglasses."

His head tilted downward, painfully slowly. Almost like he wanted to draw out this moment of awkward interaction as long as he could.

"Samantha Hutchinson?"

"The one and only," I said. Then: "What's your name?"

He put the sign down and opened the back door. The heated leather interior beckoned. I tossed my duffel bag inside, but bodyguard-guy—who should probably be called chauffeur-guy—caught my meager possessions by the worn strap as they flew. He put them in the front passenger seat with a controlled motion, his arms snapping at the joints.

I was glad I wasn't the bag, I can tell you that. And I don't always prefer to ride in the _back_ of a hearse.

We pulled out into traffic. My heart raced for a split-second, before I remembered that in Johto, people drive on the wrong side of the street. Or maybe we drive on the wrong side in Kanto, and Saffron City's infamous congestion could be resolved just that easily.

While we chugged along, I made sure to people-watch as though my life depended on it. It _had_ depended on it back in Saffron, under the Boss's roof. Being able to go out and let someone vent was a well-appreciated skill.

So, I watched my new home unfold. We passed all of the landmarks: the department store, the bicycle shop, the flower shop, and of course the Pokemon Gym. The day-care, the underground. The radio tower loomed in the background all the while, trying its hardest to disappear, like a fly on a wall, or like me at the average social function.

We made it to the more residential district soon enough. The skyscrapers and high-rises gave way to expensive homes, fancy cars, and apartment complexes of various quality. Some of the nicer ones had outrageous names like 'Sherman Oakes Community' and advertised around-the-clock security. Some of the dubious ones were just like the skyscrapers from a while ago, except now with entire sides being flat, unpainted stone. I spied more than one complex decorated with laundry hanging from the tenant balconies, like urban Christmas decorations in a post-industrial jungle.

Imagine by surprise when we stop in front of a similarly-decorated complex.

"Funny, I thought Hannelore's company liked things flashy," I slipped.

"The Company manufactures HM05 and HM04 disks, if that is what you're referring to," the driver said.

"That's a strong claim."

"Indeed, 'strength' is one of our top-selling products."

I rubbed my temples, ignoring the familiar bumps on my face. "Don't you ever laugh, Chauffeur-guy?"

He opened the door and swung around to the other side. My door and the passenger door opened at the same time. Chauffeur-guy held my duffel bag out with one arm, which meant he himself had no need to learn a move called 'strength'. I took my bag with both arms and struggled to keep upright.

Chauffeur-guy nodded and gave something resembling a wave. The car barreled back into traffic.

Community Apartments, the sign in the glass lobby window read. I could already sense the quality: this place surely used its money on more important things besides coming up with creative, enticing names.

Even better: when I stepped inside, I could _smell_ the quality! That lovely cigarette odor flared back up my nostrils. I had escaped the Boss and Saffron City, but I still couldn't escape being around smokers.

It's funny, reading that back. I make it sound all nostalgic, like I have a reason to miss cigarettes. It's actually the polar opposite. New Years Eve probably would have gone way different, to the point that I might not have bothered escaping to literally the other side of the continent, if not for cigarettes.

I pressed the call button for the elevator, trying not to think about it.

It's hard not to think about something, because by definition, you're thinking of the thing you're telling yourself not to think about. It's telling yourself not to think about elephants. Telling yourself not to think about how the Boss brought his friends over for New Years Eve when he promised it would be just you and him, because he knows that after botching your birthday by having to return your present and using the money to pay the utilities bill, he needs to make amends. Telling yourself that surely, he didn't bring all of his friends, including the guy that's always talking about how grown-up I've gotten.

Reminding yourself that, in no way did the Boss think it was fine to take that man's word over yours, that Of course you lied when you said that man grabbed you when you brought daddy's pack of cigarettes. Of course there had been no evidence, not like said man and "family friend" never stared at your chest, adding embarrassment to social injury.

The elevator dinged, and I snapped out of my mind. It was a breath of fresh air.

Not exactly fresh air. You know, cigarette smoke and all.

Hannelore wrote in our emails that her apartment was on the fourth floor. Meaning, it was too high up to take the stairs without becoming a sweating bloated mess, while taking the elevator for that blip of a second made you feel like you _should_ be a sweating, bloated mess.

The elevator doors opened onto a puke-yellow hallway. The carpet had that atrocious green kind-of-plant-looking pattern, though nobody had vacuumed in a while and the whole space smelt of mildew. I shouldered the duffel bag and heaved it bravely. If _I_ were the duffel bag, I wouldn't want to be dragged across a floor that looked like this. Common courtesy.

A few twists and turns later, and I came to Hannelore's front door. If the apartment number didn't tell you so, the crude construction-paper sunflower—complete with a drawn-on smile!—was a dead give-away.

I reached down at her doormat. Her instructions were simple: find the key under the mat, go inside, crash because I'm probably pretty tired, and wait for big sister Hannelore to get us dinner. Not a terrible plan.

It might have gone much better if Hannelore left an actual key under the mat.

Let it be known: I _did_ believe my spotty sister had placed a key for me. I searched a good ten minutes, feeling all around the mat, looking under her front door jamb, and even trying to turn the knob in an attempt to get inside. None of it worked. I was very much locked out.

The phone clock read 3:37. Hannelore wouldn't get off work until at least five, if she worked normal hours. I knew next to nothing about her job. She worked for an ominous Company that required you capitalize the first letter, and they paid for her shabby housing along with health insurance and a pension. I also knew she was a lab aide, from when she worked for Silph Co. back in Saffron. According to Silph Co., standard hours went from 12 AM to, well, 12 AM.

I went back down the elevator and tried to come up with a plan.

"I'm sorry, you have dialed an incorrect number," my phone said when I tried calling Hannelore. The voice had a hokey Johto accent, just to drive home how out-of-place I suddenly was.

I sat on the cold vinyl couch in the lobby, lungs filling up with secondhand smoke, and thought it through. I could wait in the lobby until Hannelore showed up. I could wait in the hall, though someone might find me and think I was some crazy foreigner. They would call security, and everything would go okay until they asked for an ID, and I handed my passport over. I'd get tagged as a terrorist, shipped back into Saffron, and the Boss would pay my bail. I'd then repay that bail in all kinds of devious ways.

Or, I could stash my bag with the front desk and go for a walk in the suburbs of an unfamiliar country.

That seemed about right to me.

I went to the receptionist-lady.

"Excuse me," I started.

No response.

I cleared my throat. "Um, excuse me?"

Her hand flew up. She leaned back in her chair and I saw she was talking on the phone. I didn't catch much of the conversation—she had this weird Johto dialect where they eat the last syllable of every word?—but I caught something about a boyfriend named Ted and an illegitimate child.

I carried my bag with me, back to the sidewalk.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When your older sister isn't home and there's no way to reach her, you go exploring. And when there's no place to stash your bag, you take out the passport, stuff it down your shirt, and hide the rest by the dumpsters. Worst-case scenario, I'd lose my two weeks of clothing. It might even be kind of funny, walking around in a day or so and spotting a homeless lady wearing my baggy pants and oversized sweaters. I put my headphones back onto my ears, cranked the volume, made one last pass over the trash to make sure nobody saw my bag, and hit the road.

Hannelore's building sucked the mythical fat ass, but there was something to be said about living in the suburbs.

Ten minutes of constant walking and I was passing rows of older homes with tall trees and clear skies above them. These weren't anything like the mansions and Victorians back by the city center, far from it. If I had to ask, the difference was in how these homes held actual, honest-to-God families. Those fancy ones maybe had a hip, rich young person. Plus or minus a significant other. That's how downtown Saffron was, and that's why nobody my age ever went there. We got to stay at home, where the action was.

Even though my legs eventually got tired of going past endless block after endless block of suburbia, the sights never failed to impress. Pidgey and Spearow soared in confident flocks overhead. The breeze tickled my covered shoulders, prompting the extra fabric in my hoodie to swing in time to its own song.

On future walks, I'd learn it took exactly twenty-two minutes to reach what was called The Village. Goldenrod City had spread out so much recently that the different districts often had their own little city centers. I read up on the topic the night before the move, when the Boss was sound asleep and I was wide awake and terrified.

The Village, true to the description, catered to run-of-the-mill families and young people just starting out in the world. There was nary a tall building or chain store in sight. The cobblestone streets ended at narrow sidewalks, and I seemed to be the only person paying any attention to the sidewalks at all. The whole town looked like the pictures of Kalos I had seen in school, right down to the bakeries and groups of hipsters with framed glasses and rapid conversations about Mega Evolution, cross-national trading, and like, art.

My stomach rumbled a bit. It couldn't have happened at a worse time, I remember thinking. I had no money, Hannelore wouldn't be back for a while and I stood a fair chance of getting lost. The Boss called me stupid all the time, but I knew better than to ask strangers for help in a foreign country. I had parked my feet right outside a pizza joint.

This is my life, my life is amazing.

A very-audible, nearly-tangible _crash_ erupted down the alley right past the pizza place. The handful of young guys jumped a bit; I flew out of my skin, hugged my chest and passport, and prayed for a quick entry to a heaven with food and my sister. Another crash, then a series of them, to the point that a trash lid rolled out into the sidewalk, onto the cobblestone road, and fell like something out of a cartoon.

At the time I thought everyone was watching, and that same everyone thought the crash came from me.

Turns out, that was about as far from the reality as I could have gotten.

When I first saw the Pikachu, I felt the lump in my lungs disappear and the air around me quiet to a whisper. It crawled out of the alleyway on all fours, its expression a mix of embarrassment and fear. If you've never seen a Pikachu in the wild before, you probably don't know that they're very different from the Pikachu that Trainers have, the kind you see on TV or in magazines. In pictures and on screens, Pikachu are cuddly, chubby things with neat tails, crimson circles on their chubby cheeks, and perky ears.

From top to bottom, this Pikachu stood out from the crowd in my mind. Its most defining feature had to be its left ear, where a painful cut had split the black tip in two, like a bloodied cowlick. The red circles at its cheeks were more like blobs than defined circles, never really starting and stopping anywhere on its face. I could tell it was starving from how lean it was, like a model in Pokemon form. Fur matted in a lot of places and tangled in others. Its tail was the most recognizable: it had a few brown spots, but was still in line with the standard image. And from the way the tail ended at a flat top, rather than curving into a heart, I knew this Pikachu was a boy.

We stood there for a moment, each one staring at the other. Me watching this run-down, hungry and frightened Pikachu. Him, watching this short, round girl with a blotchy face, fat headphones and comical glasses.

Another _crash_ from the alley. The Pikachu stood up on its hind legs now, the undamaged ear perking upward. I approached him slowly, holding my hand out to show I didn't mean any harm.

"What is it, little guy?" I asked. "Are some of your friends back there?"

His attention went back to me, his small pink mouth hanging open. Judging me, contemplating me. Nothing I hadn't experienced a million times before at school.

The next _crash_ rang out louder, more ferociously. Whatever had accidentally bumped into the cans before must have deliberately punched it. The Pikachu slammed back onto all fours, this time with its tiny fangs bared. Small electric currents flowed from its cheeks, zapping the air with white and blue streaks.

What started as one tumble next to one alley grew to a cacophony. A veritable orchestra of metal collisions burst from every direction, every dark nook and cranny in The Village. While the Pikachu stayed focused on the path from which it had come, I slowly craned my head around.

Somehow, I highly doubted that this was a happy family of Pikachu coming for a walk in town.

That's when I noticed something else that was strange. All of the people had vanished.

And not 'vanished' like, their clothing stayed behind, or their slices of pizza fell to the ground behind them. I looked back inside the pizza parlor, just to make sure. Nobody home.

Ditto for the sidewalks, the street, and the dainty chairs outside the several bakeries stretching down for miles.

It went silent for just a second—

A pitiful scream escaped my lungs. A man, a full-grown man old enough to be my father, tumbled from the alley. Unlike the Pikachu, who took a moment to smell the roses, this man scrambled to his feet and took me by the shoulders. Had I not been so completely mystified, I might have had the urge to knock him some.

That was, until I got a look into his eyes.

Now, I've seen some weird stuff in my fifteen years. Hannelore and I learned to tell how much the Boss had drank by whites of his eyes. And in turn, my classmates always knew their jabs were working when I went all doe-eyed. So, I knew that this man was terrified out of his mind just by looking at his bloodshot gray stare. I couldn't imagine looking the way he did in that moment. It would take experiencing the kind of horror that made living with the Boss seem just heavenly.

He shook me once, twice.

"Are they here yet?" He shouted. And when I didn't answer immediately: "Are they _here_ yet, girl? Answer me!"

He was strong, no doubt. He pulled me off of my feet and shook harder.

I tried to say that I had no idea what he was talking about, but it all came out babbled and jumbled.

The man looked away for a brief moment, and that was enough. His expression froze. His hands went lax and I landed back on my feet, stumbling a bit but basically fine. The man stood catatonic, his throat making guttural, animal sounds of panic. He managed to move one foot back, then the other, and soon he was racing down the street. I watched him go—noticed that the Pikachu had ran to the next block—and refused to turn around.

Because whatever it was that stood behind me, it didn't exist if I couldn't see it.

It didn't exist if I refused to let it exist.

I refused to live with the Boss, and so I didn't. Ignoring our demons were just that easy.

So I stood there.

I felt some thing's breath on my shoulders. Heard each individual cobblestone crunch under its Olympian feet. Felt everything grow colder, felt the shadow behind me grow past and engulf my own, until I was standing in complete shade and near-darkness.

At this point, I should have ran.

But I couldn't. My legs had locked, my entire body frozen just like the man before. I heard the lips smacking, heard a jaw unhinge with an anticipating 'click' of bone and gristle. The world behind me turned warm, smelled rancid—

The air parted with a violent slash. I fell forward, scraping my hands on the street and skidding my pants. This time, I looked back, and to this day, I cannot really explain what it was.

The creature stood the height of a man, but tilted from side to side with no center of gravity. It clicked with each motion, its many arms waved and slammed in the air and into buildings thoughtlessly. The jaw belonged to a Mawile, not a man, though the drool that melted the street beneath it I could not explain, could never explain.

A black bird swooped down between me and the creature, flapping its mighty wings to repel the creature. I tried standing, but the winds pushed me back down, guided by the bird Pokemon's impossible strength. I tried standing a second time but only succeeded in tumbling forward, almost right into the alien being's mouth—

A hand gripped by collar and threw me back, but thankfully on my feet. It was a boy. My age, give or take a year in either direction. He didn't look my way, his eyes focused on the battle waging before us. The being's arms grew to become those of giants, its jaw dropping through to the earth.

The boy pushed the thin frames of his oval glasses further up his long face.

"I imagine you're not supposed to be here," he said.

If there was ever a hint to be taken, that was the one. I turned tail and bounded down the street, pumping my arms and racing away from the sounds of combat as though my life depended on it. Forgive me if I felt like it did.

The Pikachu was suddenly at my feet, running with the same urgency. I don't know how far we exactly ran, just far enough that we saw the man from before stumbling, holding his arm at his side. Crimson flowed down to pool at his feet.

I stopped so abruptly, I fully expected to eat rock.

Now, I had seen blood before, but in the same way most people did. Maybe a dribble from your arm when the doctor gives you your shots, or a slow trickle when you give yourself a paper cut. I'd venture to guess that less than ten percent of the population has seen a grown man bleeding out from his side, holding his innards inside his body. If you want to narrow that to teenaged schoolgirls, then I'm sure that list goes down to like, three people. Now four.

It was a good thing I hadn't eaten.

One, two, three more of those things walked toward the man with a zombie-like gait. Two came at him from both sides of the dark alleys, and I kid you not, one grew up from nothing out of the ground itself. And like something out of a movie, their slowed-down motions suddenly picked up as all three jaws dropped down and arms swiped at him.

A distant voice yelled at me...for me? To me?

The man's body flew into the air and spun around five ways from Sunday. My stomach retched.

A hand to the back of my head, pulling the headphones down and shoving me onto my knees.

"I said, get _down!_ Lili, _now!_"

A barrage of leaves, verdant as a fresh spring morning and sharp as daggers, sliced the air and cut through the beings. They didn't bleed, not exactly. Bits of shadow ripped off of their flesh and flew like blood would, but it disappeared before hitting the ground.

"Get up!"

The voice belonged to a girl. Again, a girl my age. She pulled me to my feet, shoved me to the right, pointing frantically.

"That way! Move it!"

I caught a hint of red ribbon moving with her as she stood brave against the abominations, but didn't stay around to watch. The Pikachu ran faster than me this time, only stopping every few seconds to let me catch up. What a nice guy.

I saw it long before the Pikachu ever would: the creature growing up from its feet, silent and deadly. My entire body shook, hand moving back and forth, fighting the urge to reach for it, and to pump my arms and keep going. If I took these seconds to run, I might get a few more moment before another of those things just showed up and took me alive. Or I could use them to give the Pikachu the same chance.

The black creature's head came out of the ground. I screamed, my voice sounding nothing like my voice.

"Pika!"

Preface: I don't speak Pikachu. I don't speak Pokemon. But that one half-word was enough to get the Pikachu to jump into my arms and knock me back against a storefront, down into the trash bins and to my own explosion of metal chaos. Not that the sound stood out anymore, not between my ringing ears, pounding chest, and two fights going on behind me, which entailed buildings coming down and vehicles flying through the air to land like childrens' toys on the road.

The Pikachu and I huddled there, buried under food wrappers and empty plastic cartons, while the creature rose to its full height. We had no chance now, none at all. If we got up, it would strike us with those arms and bring us into those jaws. If we stayed put, we would go to the same toothy place, just without the effort on the ghoul's part.

Its body creaked as it turned exactly the wrong way, bending at a forty-five degree angle.

Only now did I see its eyes. Glowing white circles, moving in slow circles on its inky head.

We made a very alarming kind of eye contact.

I was seconds away from saying my prayers when an arm came down by my head, this one a pinkish human one. I followed the arm up to the boy it came attached to, watched the hints of sandy blond hair flutter under his white beanie cap. His simple white shirt hung to his lean frame, ending lamely just below his waist where his torn jeans started.

Nothing stood out about him, nothing at all. He had no pointy glasses and strange know-it-all vibe like the boy with the bird Pokemon, nor an angry urgency like the girl after.

The boy spoke in a gentle whisper, a hum on the wind.

"I've got you."

He extended the other arm out toward the beast with an amazing confidence, the kind you'd associate with a knight in some bogus fantasy story. I followed his other arm down, from the same lanky forearm to the same bony fingers...ending at what was supposed to be a Pokeball, but somehow wasn't. It was like no Pokeball I had ever seen. The entire sphere glowed with every color of the rainbow, swirling in and out of itself but never glowing, a mundane item of the most ornate design.

The creature acknowledged the boy now, but when its eyes saw the ball in his hand, the situation changed. It drew its arms back, and its jaw snapped shut.

"I-if I didn't know any better," I babbled, "I'd say that's a fighting stance."

The boy smiled, just enough for me to catch it.

"You'd be right," he said. "Do me a favor?"

I nodded.

"Be still."

He threw the ball out into the arena between himself and the demon. A white explosion burst forth.

...

Thanks for reading! Hope you stick around for the adventure.


	2. We make a good team

Samantha and the Golden Boy

...

- "We make a good team."

The ball snapped shut and flew back to the boy's open hand. The Pokemon stood strong on all fours, marched between us and the moving darkness. Brown smoke flared from its snout as it scratched its front paws expectantly on the ground.

Like with the other Pokemon fighting the other abominations, I had no idea what this one was. I'd never seen anything like it. A pig-looking Pokemon with red and brown stripes, culminating in a stringy tail with a ball at the tip. It was no longer than my own forearm, it couldn't have weighed more than a small child. And somehow, this was my savior's partner of choice.

"Get ready, Hammo," the boy addressed his Pokemon. 'Hammo' seemed like a strange name for a Pokemon species to me, but I was in no position to complain.

The alien being raised its arms, brought them down hard—

"Let's go!"

Hammo braced itself for the smallest second, then bounced upward before the nighmarish arms came down. Debris launched everywhere, the cobblestones smashed and smashing up stores and innocent parked cars like they weren't even there. Hammo was in freefall, a tiny Pokemon twenty feet above us, but that ignored the raw determination in its hopeful blue eyes.

Its mouth opened wide. Plumes of fire shot out and landed on the creature's black skin, singing and sizzling the inky flesh before fizzling out. In response, the alien sprouted three more arms out of its back, seemingly effortless, and reached for Hammo. It dodged the first swipe, swiveled around the second, but was too close to the ground now to avoid the third—

The impact made me cringe. The whipcrack of leather hitting flesh sent a jolt up the Pikachu's spine, and the boy recoiled. He reached for his left arm, on the same left side where Hammo had taken the hit. The tiny Pokemon landed on its side, but scrambled to its feet quickly, its will unbroken from that one strike.

The being began to grow.

Two, three feet straight upward, its shadow blocking out all light and catching myself, the Pikachu, and the boy in its shroud. Then, just to prove to me that I understood _nothing_ about its geometry or physics or anything at all, it bent and curved straight downward, attempting to smother Hammo where it stood. Hammo rolled just out of the way, now contending with the six or seven tentacles that swiped and slashed at it. Hammo was fast, but it was still too small to whether blows the way another Pokemon might. Bruises and cuts covered its hide. Trickles of blood started to drip down.

I couldn't watch this. I got to my feet. My voice still wasn't my own, because I never shout at anyone but the Boss, and even then, very rarely. "Don't just stand there! Help it!"

"I'm trying!" The boy barked. I failed to see how him standing there, twitching like an ignoramus while those big, pretty eyes watched the fight from afar constituted 'help'.

Finally, Hammo found an opening. Its body glowed a hot orange, and right when the orange turned into full-fledged flames, it tackled the being's curved body.

I'd call the resulting sound a 'howl', but it really sounded more like when the Boss would be late for work, and his tires would screech on the pavement, complete with smoke wafting up from its burn.

As the tentacles flailed, Hammo moved out of its corner and back into the middle of the street. The creature regained its bearings too quickly. Its tentacle arms took hold of the store tops, moving like spider legs as it raced for its opponent.

Hammo stood perfectly still. _Too _still. When I had a demon from the black lagoon gunning for me with its hungry jaw open and salivating, I did everything but stand still.

That's when I saw the gash on its hind leg.

Hammo couldn't move, even if it wanted to.

I had to do something, to warn the boy who refused to do anything. Didn't Pokemon Trainers give orders? Call a wounded Pokemon back, give it a potion, or at least tell it what to attack with?

And this blond, beanie'd buffoon did _nothing_.

Apparently, I was not the only one with this opinion. The Pikachu took off like a rocket, gunning for the defenseless Hammo, pushing back its fear and moving on willpower alone.

"Call that thing back!" The boy screamed at me.

The boy shouted again. If I didn't know any better, from the strain in his throat I'd say he was in pain. But that was impossible; he was standing right next to me. "Your Pokemon's going to get us killed. Tell it to come back!"

Hammo waited for the black body to stop crawling for it. The jaw extended all the way out, and now I could see the disarmingly pink, disarmingly oversized human tongue reach out and grope for Hammo. One, two seconds more and Hammo would be demon chow.

Except that right then, Hammo's chubby body glowed a brilliant lime green.

The Pikachu saw it too, knew better than to come directly between Hammo and the creature. The Pikachu flew upward, keeping the momentum going and propelling above Hammo.

You couldn't have timed it more perfectly if you tried.

The lime green energy engulfing Hammo was suddenly an energy beam, bright like a hazel sun, shooting off of its small hurt body and into the literal mouth of the beast. The Pikachu unleashed its own attack, a lightning-blue Thundershock strike. The blue electricity wrapped around Hammo's attack out of sheer serendipity. Both blasts hit the being right in the mouth.

The boy was suddenly right behind me, his hands gripped tightly around both of my ears. "I'm sorry about this," he said quickly. I didn't have the time to ask.

Even with his hands, and then mine on top of his helping to cover my ears the sound of the demon dying was sheer agony. For a prolonged minute, I stood helpless as some thing drilled into my ears with a power tool.

The sight was hardly any better. The beast spasmed out of control, its arms flailing and destroying the handful of buildings still standing. The tongue had been torn in half, and the rest of the blast remained as a gaping crater in the beast's gaping, reeking mouth. It sank below the ground slowly, a beaten warrior not yet convinced that it needed to call quits, but unwilling to push onward.

First the body sank down, then the arms, the shards of its tongue, until finally the shadow shrank and no remnant of the monster remained.

The boy counted to five, pressing each of his fingers closer to my temple, before letting go.

I sank to my knees.

I think I was saying words..?

"That was an Unseen," the boy responded to an unknown question. "That should be the last one. We didn't quite get a Mission Clear on this, but if Conner and Amber did their part, then we at least cleared all of the Unseen out of this area.

"Never mind, it's a Mission Clear after all," the boy said. He looked me in the eye—God, that boy's eyes were pretty—and pointed up and around us. "See for yourself," he cooed.

The buildings were reforming themselves. A video played in reverse. Gravel flew back to place and flattened, glass floated to store displays and became pristine once more.

The boy limped off of the sidewalk toward Hammo and the Pikachu. Hammo staggered toward him in response, both of them marching like battered heroes. With far more effort than it seemed like he needed and more pain than he wanted, the boy knelt down and hugged his porky friend. I looked away, first at the back-to-normal road and then up in the air. The Pikachu had been doing the same thing. Our eyes met, and then raced away from each other. Way to make this awkward, Pikachu.

"Time's up for today, pal," the boy said. He took the ornate Pokeball out and held it toward Hammo. "Today was pretty smooth, so get some rest. We could use it."

The Pokemon retreated into the ball with a flash of red light. The boy pressed the lock button on the Pokeball to minimize it, then shoved the small metal sphere into his baggy jeans pocket.

People returned to the world. Which was especially jarring, even after watching a man have his innards eaten out, because everyone seemed so _normal_. There was nothing _normal _here today. As far as I was concerned, this was hardly any better than living with the Boss. At least in Saffron City, random abominations from the planet Hell didn't come out of nowhere and try to eat me.

The hipsters swarming the bakeries around me would never know that. The boys in the pizza joint, the people walking to their cars and the innocent Pidgey flying overhead would never understand the horror of my almost quick, and almost very certain death.

When I came back to reality, I could have sworn the boy was watching me. I turned back to him, and his eyes flew somewhere else. I followed his gaze: the other boy and girl from their own fights walked carelessly down the cobblestone street. I remembered how the boy with the beanie had said their names, Conner and Amber. It was simple enough to sort that out: the girl was obviously Amber, and the boy with glasses and that massive bird Pokemon was Conner.

Amber rested on hand in her skirt pocket and flipped her own strange, multi-colored Pokeball up and down in her palm. The first thing I noticed was her annoyed expression. Today had been one big time-waster, and Miss Amber had things to do. The second was the bright red ribbon that wrapped around her head of thick mahogany hair. The ribbon ended in a loose bow that danced with her movements, no matter how subtle.

"What a crock," she said. Amber's voice jarred me. It was at least four notes lower than it should have been. "Only three of them, and even then, we still can't get a Mission Clear. What kind of losers are we? This is all your fault, Conner. You and your busted miscalculations." She said the word 'miscalculations' with air quotes and a snotty, nasally tone. I got the feeling we would have made distinct efforts to avoid one another on the way to our lockers between classes.

"Do not blame my work or my genius, Amber. Not unless you wish to seem even more pedestrian in mind, to match your utterly equestrian looks."

"What's that even mean?" Amber bellowed.

"In layman's terms?" Conner closed his eyes, then opened the right one at her. Looking down on a person while being a few inches under them. "You look like a horse, and your mind is slow."

"We got the Mission Clear, gang," said the boy who had saved my life. He held his hands out in that 'calm down, stop the fighting' pose that I associated with big brothers and parents of terrible kids. Hannelore used that pose to try and calm down the Boss. It never worked, but that's for another time.

"How do you figure, team leader?" Amber asked. "We were supposed to save the Drifters, but I only saw one, and in case you didn't see him, it's because he's Unseen roadkill."

"Unless," Conner mused, "Unless you refer to _that_ one."

What a way to make a girl feel special. Conner's long face, pointed nose and square glasses, topped off with a bowl cut of jet-black hair, made me feel better about my own appearance by contrast.

"Sure, but she's got a partner, though," Amber said. "I figured she just kind of showed up late to the party."

"Late to the party running for her life, with a Pokemon that obviously was not bonded to her?"

"It was just a suggestion, runt. Don't bust my balls."

"We did the Mission Clear," the other boy said, trying to rein in his two cohorts. "We lost one person, but we saved the other. The Dome wouldn't have come down if we didn't clear, remember?"

"Indeed. We may have been trapped for all eternity in an in-between space thanks to Amber's blundering."

The other boy put a hand to his temple.

"At any rate," Conner continued, "We do have an innocent in our midsts." He talked like a wanna-be professor, and I hated him more with each of his passing breaths.

The other boy and Amber probably understood what Conner meant, but he savored the chance to explain anyway. He stared at me like I was a piece of low-grade meat on his high-caliber plate. "That Pokemon only existed in the Dome. It has gone back to its dimension, since you were not chosen to hold one of our special destinies. I suppose not all of us can rise above peon status in this world."

I swear, I was gonna slug him.

"But your Pokemon has left, the fighting is over and your life is spared. Go from here, and never—"

The Pikachu jumped right onto my head.

Right. Onto. My head.

He sat there, balled up and breathing heavily, as though he were a temporary hat. A hat with a nap. How very poetic. And that didn't even rhyme.

That Conner's eyes went wide with confusion—the Pikachu still being around must have broken some part of his technobabble—and it would be lying to say I didn't enjoy Conner finally shutting up.

Amber glared once at me, then back to the other boy.

"We have a Mission Clear," he repeated. "Let's go back to Conner's place. We can discuss the Pikachu there." Then, to me: "You come, too. But stay close to me."

He didn't have to tell me twice.

…

We left The Village and went in the complete opposite direction of Hannelore's apartment building. Condescending Conner lived in a soft-spoken one-story home. The lawn set far back into the property, meaning we had to step over the weeds and dead grass to get to the front door. Not that Conner's neighbors were in any better shape: the home to their left was a once-proud two-story home cut up into four tiny units and ran into the ground by a skeezeball landlord. To the other side of Conner's home had no lawn at all. The homeowners ripped up the grass and paved over the dirt with cement, where they parked all four of their trucks.

Back in Saffron, I might have called this the wrong side of town.

Which is funny, considering the Boss technically lived in a nice area. Just goes to show.

Now, I rarely went over to a friend's house. I stopped having sleepovers after Mom left. Still, I knew what to expect. Both parents pester you and ask about your home life and grades, you and your friend try and slink up to her room (always a 'her'), and her parents periodically bring you snacks. It ties into why I never invited friends over. Instead of stopping in to bring us snacks, the Boss would pull me away from my friend and scream at me under his breath about something so important, it obviously had to be done while I had a guest. Never mind that when Hannelore asked to use the phone in the main room while the Boss had his friends over, he threw their first empty bottle of the night at her and dared her to call the police. I think he was drunk that time.

I think.

Long story short, I hadn't done the ole' meet-and-greet with parental units in quite a while.

Which surprised me when we detoured around the front door, avoiding the main entrance to the house altogether. We followed Conner down a concrete staircase off the side of the house. No railing, no fence, just stairs. The Boss would have my head for following a boy down this way, but I wasn't alone. I was with _two_ boys and one boyish girl, all of whom were complete strangers who fought demons in their spare time. Totally safe, I'm positive.

The Pikachu fell off of my head and into my arms, then down to the step. Conner opened the lock to the steel door before us.

What house had a separate entrance guarded by a steel door?

Conner, Amber and the other boy went inside while the lights were still off. When the Pikachu bounced after them, I knew I had no choice but to follow. I straightened my glasses, re-oriented the passport in my bra and held my hand onto my probably-broken headphones.

Someone slammed the door shut behind me, and for a moment, I wondered if this pitch-black room contained nothing _but_ the demons.

The light flashed on.

A central desk of computers bathed all of us in a green artificial light. I counted a literal dozen monitors, of all shapes and sizes surrounding the seat and keyboards in a half-circle. Conner fell into the chair with habitual speed.

"I suppose I'll have to bring her up to speed," Conner said, typing fast. I watched as raw code appeared on one of the larger monitors.

Amber held up a hand. "You really don't have to do that—"

"There is a dimension hidden behind our own."

"Here he goes," Amber groaned.

As Conner began to pace around the room, he flipped the various switches on the plaster walls. Pale blue light illuminated the lab that really felt more like a dungeon. The computer terminal took up the center space, with a small kitchenette in one far corner and a worn twin-size bed in the other.

"As anyone would guess, the Unseen do not come from our side of the barrier that keeps the dimensions separate," Conner said. "They come through at specified moments, though they act in an alien, chaotic manner which stymies my ability to understand their brilliant complexities."

My first thought: This guy is a little too into his 'mad-scientist' routine.

My second: Why was Amber looking at me that way?

Next thing I know, Amber has me by my shirt collar. She slammed me against the steel door, and I'd be lying if I said that didn't just _sting_. She was much stronger than she looked. Amber lifted me up onto my tiptoes and like I said, I'm not an easily-liftable lady.

"Amber! Stop it!"

"Back off, Henry," Amber said to the non-mad-scientist. "If you guys are cool with telling a complete stranger our secrets, then fine, whatever. But I'm not about to stand here and let a butterball with headgear get in our way."

"She's not _in our way_," the other boy—Henry—said gently. Conner had shut up when Amber decided to play fastball; Henry talked slower and even more sweetly than before. "She has a Pokemon from the other world and she's sensitive, just like we are."

Then, just to clarify: "This girl can help us."

"Right, that Pikachu she dragged off the street," Amber said. She still wasn't looking right at me, for which I was all kinds of grateful. I don't like confrontation. But then, what did I call being slammed against a steel door..?

I mentally shrugged. Being slammed against a locker by a pretty girl and her guy friends was nothing new.

"I know a trick when I see one," Amber sneered.

Amber's honey-colored eyes dug into me, a pair of rusted metal meat cleavers. My breath stopped and Amber pressed me tighter to the door. I felt her chewed fingernails on my collarbone.

"You want to know what I think you are?"

Conner answered for me. "A trojan horse sent from the mindless flesh-eaters that, as we already established, cannot exist outside the domed space? Funny how things without brains can understand battle concepts from Ancient Greece."

He was only making her angrier. Intentionally, too.

Henry opened his mouth to speak again, but the Pikachu was quicker. Teeth out, it lunged for Amber's bare calf with lightning speed, almost like a legitimate attack. Amber let go of me and barely avoided becoming the Pikachu's lunch.

She swore under her breath and a hand raced for her skirt pocket. Henry was on her in a heartbeat, pushing past me and wrestling the special Pokeball out of Amber's grip.

"Let go of me, Henry. I'm warning you," Amber grunted.

"This girl is one of us," Henry said firmly. Then: "We don't hurt our friends."

Amber quit struggling, but the Pokeball remained in her hand. The Pikachu and I made eye-contact, and I wasn't sure whether or not to mentally scold him or to thank him for rescuing my windpipe.

"Typical Henry," Amber sneered. "Always with the power of friendship. That's why you're the team captain, isn't it?

"Then you," she jabbed an accusatory finger at Conner. "You with your explanation of stuff that we barely understand to the first mousy girl that comes your way...Ha!

"And I'm that kid that thinks the new girl can't be trusted. This is my life."

Amber came toward me with the same not-quite-looking-at-you gaze the Boss had when he was busy and I was in the way. Instinct took over and I moved aside. Amber went outside, up the stairs, and was gone.

The three of us, plus the Pikachu, stared after her wordlessly.

"Well, that's Amber," Henry started. "She means well, I promise. It's just that she can be a bit jumpy sometimes."

"Sometimes," I echoed.

"After you fight alongside us, it'll be back to normal. That's Conner over there," Henry gestured. Great. _I just drafted you into my personal Teen Titans gang. Welcome to the world of fighting concentrated evil specters of the night. Are you a boy, or a girl? _"As you probably noticed already, Conner's the smart guy. Knows what we're up against and how to get Mission Clears. Or at least, better than Amber and I do."

"Which is not saying much," Conner said. I detected more than an ounce of false modesty.

"That's them...you've already seen the computer...oh, right. I'm Henry!" A nervous hand tugged on the brim of his white cap. "You probably knew our names already, what with all the shouting and stuff. Just thought it would be polite. I personally hate it when you never really get introduced to someone, and you're stuck hanging around them the whole night when all you needed was a handshake and a—"

"Too much, team leader."

"Sorry!" Henry blushed. Boys can blush, what do you know?

I wondered why they were staring. Then I remembered, a conversation flows two ways.

"Samantha Hutchinson," I pointed at myself. Then, quickly before it was too late: "But don't actually call me that. I'm Sam."

"Sam," Henry nodded. "Nice to meet you."

He looked back at his feet again.

Or maybe that was me imagining he was awkward and cute. He _actually_ looked at the mass of yellow fur by my feet.

"Who's this happy critter?" Henry asked. He dropped to his knees and casually stroked the Pikachu's head. I was surprised the Pikachu let him get away with it. "You're Pika, aren't you?"

I didn't understand. Henry looked up at me with an embarrassed expression. "I didn't mean to intrude or anything. You called it to you so that Unseen wouldn't kill it coming up out of the ground, and I kind of overheard."

Now.

I am many things, and I am _not_ many things.

For example, I am _not_ outgoing or confident or able to play the tuba. And conversely, I _am_ pretty at home by myself with my headphones and a box of Cheese Nips.

I am _not_ very educated. Lord knows it took everything in me to pass Geometry. But that didn't mean I wasn't smart, evidenced by me moving out of the Boss's black fortress of a house before that man's atmosphere of despair ate me alive.

If I told Conner and Henry that the Pikachu wasn't mine, then there went any semblance of the Pikachu being one of their group. When Amber eventually came back, she wouldn't hesitate to throw the Pikachu back on the streets, or worse. It would be throwing the Pikachu under the bus. You don't do that to friends, even if you only just met them in an alleyway a while back.

"No, you're totally right," I lied through my teeth. "That's Pika, and he's mine."

"Nice to meet you, Pika," Henry said happily. He reached for his pocket. "Want to say 'hi' to Hammo again? I'm sure he's glad you wanted to help out earlier—"

"I would advise against that, team leader," Conner said. "Miss Hutchinson has had a long day. And although the nature of our situation spares us lost time, I am sure she wants to take advantage of that in her own way. Am I right, Samantha?"

Nobody called me that, and not in that prissy 'nobody's ever called me that before, d'aww!' kind of way, either.

I caught onto something he said. Which was lucky, since everything else he babbled on about—Unseen? Dimensions? Special Pokeballs?—flew right over me. "What do you mean, 'spares us lost time'?"

"Simple. Examine your time-keeping device of choice."

I was going to knock him out, I swear it.

But he was totally right in his condescend-o-speak. My mouth gaped.

"It's barely after four," I awed. It had been barely _before_ four when I went into the Village.

"Four o'clock, that's when the Twilight hits," Henry said, emphasizing the capital 'T'. He paused, then: "I'll tell you what, Sam. Hand me your phone."

I handed it over without an argument. He gave it back quickly. I don't know what I was expecting, maybe for him to install an app for understanding technobabble? Imagine my surprise when he's the first boy to put his number in my phone. The phone I've had for a few years now, mind you.

"Call me when you feel up to it," he said simply. "This is a lot to take in, and I understand if you don't want to deal with anything today...or ever, even!"

"As if she has a choice," Conner said.

Between Conner's snottiness and Amber's trying-to-strangle-me-ness, making me come back here was a tough sell.

Henry ignored him, staying focused on me as though I were the only one in the room. Computer-room. Dungeon. Whatever. "Do you know the way home?"

I kid you not, I almost asked this nice boy to walk me home.

Luckily, reality set in. Walking home with a stranger in a foreign country where aliens attack you...Like I said, I'm not an idiot.

"I think I can manage," I said.

"Great!" Henry said too quickly. Was he glad I entertained the thought of calling him, or did he want me gone? "I'll see you soon."

I opened the steel door, closed it behind myself and the Pikachu—Pika—and started up the stairs.

I took two steps toward the Village and toward Hannelore's apartment, and Pika was gone.

…

Receptionist-lady had seemingly been on her phone from the moment I left the building to when I came back. I get that only an hour passed—though I don't get _how—_but you'd think that if your job gave you housing, they'd get a semi-competent person to watch out for everyone's well-being. I walked right past her, pressed the call button for the elevator, and set off for the fourth floor without a hitch.

The cigarette smoke didn't hit me nearly as hard as before. That was nothing special. I got used to the odor once before, after all.

We had to stop at every floor along the way. If I hadn't known any better, I'd have guessed that the old folks' home was having a convention on the roof. I somehow squeezed past hunched-over ladies, old dudes who looked either like Mr. Rogers or Mr. Gropey (there were never any in-betweeners), and only got my headphones caught on one person's walkers.

They let me through with a collective sneer.

Home, sweet home. Provided Hannelore was in, I mean. If I went to the door and found myself locked out _again_, I'd probably settle for sitting outside until the cops picked me up and tossed me in a foreign slammer. Seeing as how the first time I went out I almost quite literally died, prison struck me as mildly safer.

The paper sunflower on the door had changed just slightly. The smile now had a raised eyebrow drawn on in a different color marker. First Conner and Amber come out of nowhere and treat me like fresh dirt, and now a paper plant is laughing at me. My life.

A thin blue pen scribbled a note in one of those comic book text boxes, so the plant was both laughing at me and giving me sage advice.

'Sorry! I came back and put the key under the mat, for realsies this time! I'll be home tomorrow morning. -Hanna Banana.'

Lo and behold, a shiny silver key under the mat! Freshly made and with its own 'do not copy' warning.

The Boss had never given me a key, even though I lived with him my entire life. The handful of late nights I have to endure—because you'd have to be insane to willingly go out late in the Boss's house—saw me sneaking in my bedroom window like some cliched teen movie. He got wise and bolted a grill over my window, though from his point of view, that was just a 'glory hole' for the boys I brought home behind his back.

Yes, pa. Boys want to get lost forever in my love handles.

I felt the weight of the key in my hand. It felt more like home than those four walls in Saffron City had for months.

I put the key in the lock and laughed to myself. Imagine if the key didn't work, after all of that.

Nah, just playing. The lock turned with an anti-climatic click.

Hannelore's apartment was exactly how I imagined it to be. She had only been living here for a little over three months, but even then, it was like walking into a physical representation of her mind. Plants everywhere, juxtaposed with the Styrofoam cartons lined with gooey orange chicken and chow mein.. It was a tiny little place, the kind with a combined living room and kitchenette. A platoon of baking-sized bowls and rubber spatulas sat in the dish drain The only piece of furniture that obviously didn't come with the home was a bright new bookshelf, displaying Hannelore's worn paperbacks and Pokemon figures.

I saw the Pokemon Master Red figure I gave her for her nineteenth birthday. The Boss was mad at both of us, me for using my money on a toy and her for liking toys at her age. That said, the Boss had given nothing at all.

The main room broke off into a separate hallway. My feet creaked on the hardwood floors and stopped when I started down the hall, thanks to a bright green rug Hannelore had bought. Two doors faced one another. Before I could ask, I noticed the green sunflower for 'Hannelore's Room!' and the red one for 'Sam's Room!' And just for comedic effect, she put a blue sunflower on the final door and labeled it 'Bath Room!'

Another reason why I loved my big sister? We fought like normal sisters but rarely dealt with straight misunderstandings, since we kind of hated the same things. For example, we both hated how the downstairs bathroom in the Boss's home opened to the living room. The upstairs toilet didn't flush, so if the Boss decided to have one of his drinkfest parties and you had to go, tough luck. Cut to Hannelore's first apartment with a bathroom as far from the main room as possible.

Before I went to my room, I decided to be a good sister and raid the fridge. I had no idea what Hannelore made, but I figured it was enough to cover one kitchen attack.

Just like her, too! A carton of eggs, a two-liter of Diet Coke, and half of a supreme pizza. With a post-it in the same pen from the hasty-note on the front door: 'Go for it!'

With pleasure, I thought. I pulled the pizza and the Coke with a lumberjack grip, and collapsed on the sofa. The TV was one of those older flat-screens, but considering I was used to _no_ TV, who was I to complain?

One hour of bad reality TV and pizza later, I had learned two things.

One, Johto's phrases made no sense. How do you 'take the piss' out of something? Why would you do that?

Two, I was exhausted beyond comprehension. I wasn't even chewing right. I just kind of put the slice in my mouth and nibbled. And while it would be funny for Hannelore to see me like this right away, I doubted anyone wanted to see that image right after work. I put the leftovers where I got them.

Then, just to be a cheery housemate, I fished a pen out of a drawer and wrote on the post-it. 'I got to it, your turn.'

By the time I got to my room, my body was running on fumes. I found whatever looked like a bed and collapsed onto it.

Five seconds into sleepville, the axe killer scratched at my window. I blinked open.

"Pika?" I asked. "Did you follow me home?"

I went to open the window, still scolding him in my sleep-deprived state. "I'll let you pass this time, but girls don't like stalkers. Unless they're really, really pretty, but that's between you and me."

I didn't notice what Pika had in his teeth until he dropped it on my floor.

"My duffel bag!" I said. I had completely forgotten about it. I instinctively checked for my passport, still in my shirt. I found it and threw it next to the bag. All of my stuff in one place.

I looked back at Pika, who simply stood on my windowsill.

I was about to give him the 'I don't know how to thank you' spiel when his stomach growled something ferocious.

"Come on in," I waved my hand inside. Then: "But I'm closing the window behind you, so your pals can't come in. And if I catch you with any Pika-buddies, you're gone. Capice?"

After shooting me with a cross between annoyance and further annoyance, Pika jumped into my room. I shut the door behind him, and he followed me into the kitchen. All I could do was hope that Hannelore didn't _really_ want that pizza.

I sprawled back over the couch while Pika ate.

"I hope Hannelore doesn't mind that you're here," I yawned. "Though I've gotta say, between your bag-getting skills and my letting-you-in-my-new-home skills...we make a good team."

My eyelids closed in after that, and I was in dreamland.


	3. Unfamiliar ceiling

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

- "Unfamiliar ceiling."

A little under eight months ago.

I knew the Boss had come home late. He hated it when my alarm went off after his late-nights, so I took the next best option and set my phone to buzz at 7. When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was the smell of maple syrup and honey.

I knew right away, this wouldn't be good.

I stood up and started for downstairs. Mine and the Boss's room were right beside one another, so I had to be crazy quiet. Hannelore's room had been vacant for a while by this point. The necessary backstory was, her and the Boss got into yet another fight over how she should be using her money. Hannelore had been putting it into a savings account so she could go back to school, finish her degree in Pokemon Breeding and Berrymaking, and maybe get her life started. From the way the Boss went at her, you'd think she put away thousands of dollars, not about twenty dollars and change from her last paycheck. According to him, she was _supposed_ to be giving it to him to maintain the family.

We both knew that meant booze money. Hannelore voiced it for the first time during their last fight. Her room had been vacant for the three weeks since.

I was cold in my boyshorts and tank top, and I know I looked like an absolute fright with my hair going in each direction and probably defying physics in some respect, but Hannelore beamed at me from the kitchen.

"Good morning! How are you feeling?" She smiled.

Honestly, I _hated_ Hannelore in the best way. Hated how she was so cute all the time, how she weighted a third of what I did while eating twice as much, how she wore our chubby cheeks like a goddess and how she smiled through everything. I always figured that if she weren't so Hannelore-y, she'd probably be fighting boys off with both fists.

"I made breakfast," Hannelore explained. "I heard about the all-nighter at Silph last night, and thought...I don't know, maybe Dad could maybe use a pick-me-up."

She waved me over to our meager living room table, grimy with alcohol stains and tortilla chip crumbs. Part of me was dying for real food, for a breakfast besides Captain Crunch and dubiously-aged milk. The other half recognized the bear trap that was my sister's unending cheer.

See, Hannelore always tried to see the best in people. When her teacher in tenth grade gave her a C in Hoenn Lit, Hannelore blamed it on herself, not on how said teacher somehow misplaced half of her assignments. When the Boss threw a bottle at her and it crashed against the wall inches from her pretty blond head, she blamed it on the booze. Not on our father, never on our father.

She sat the plate of pancakes, eggs, and sausages before me and held the syrup jar.

"Smiley-face or star?" She asked jubilantly.

It would have broken my heart to tell her what I was really thinking, to tell her that this was the worst idea possible. But deep-down she knew it too, but this was the only way she knew to go forward. You don't go on the offensive when you're Hannelore. You kill them with kindess.

"Smiley-face," I said.

The wood croaked above us.

We both froze at the sound of footsteps in the hall. I was stuck much longer than my sister, of course. She knew how a groggy and cranky Boss moved in the mornings, and believe me, Hannelore is not a dumb girl. She wouldn't have been brought on to work in the Pokemon Center with just her high school diploma and some volunteer experience without being smart. She emerged with a tower of chocolate flapjacks, just the way the Boss liked them, and timed it so she was only coincidentally walking out with them when the Boss saw her.

Now, I should probably give you some description of our father. You're probably imagining this fat guy who walks around in stained jeans, has a rusted belt, has a distractingly-hairy chest with a balded chrome dome, and who only showers a few times a decade. He wears steel-toed boots, he's got missing teeth, and there's no way any court would give teenage girls to him.

When I explain that he's actually got a strong jaw, a slick haircut, pleated pants and that he showers every other day depending on the day's lifting, you stop and think, wait. He sounds like an okay guy. He even has button-down shirts. He signs permission slips and smiles at parent-teacher conferences.

Yeah, he definitely does all that. Then he does things like see the plate in front of me, and his other daughter with the motherload, and do what I personally could never do. Something in his head told him that flapjacks were delicious, and that he should make amends. That's just human nature.

Our father likes to directly override nature.

"What are you doing in my house?"

"I made you and Sam breakfast! Nurse Joy told me about the Ultra Ball shipment last night, and I—"

"That's not what I asked," the Boss raised his voice. "What are you doing in my house?"

Hannelore had stilled herself for this. "We said some things we didn't mean. I thought we could let bye-gones be bye-gones, and what better way to do that than with flapjacks?"

"I didn't ask you to make those," the Boss said coldly.

"I know," Hannelore said, her facade starting to crack. "I was doing something nice..."

"Don't bother. I told you, you're done here. You packed your things, you moved out, you're done. And Samantha," he glared my way, "Don't you take one bite out of that goop or you'll regret it."

I hadn't picked up the fork before, but now I definitely had an urge to. Though it wouldn't be the pancake I'd be stabbing.

Hannelore sat the plate down and removed her apron. She wore her white sundress just for this occasion. I remember her saying she was saving it for that First Date that never quite happened.

"Maybe I should have called..."

"Hannelore, maybe you should have stayed outside. I am so _done_ with you, you just don't listen to a thing I say. Maybe that's how things work at that Pokemon Center you work at, but Joy is dumb as your sister is fat—"

"Samantha didn't do anything."

"I know she didn't do anything, she's the _good_ one. She _listens_ when I tell her to do things. If I ask her to do a chore, she does them. If I ask her, 'Samantha, did you get paid today?', you know what she would do? Something your lying mouth wouldn't: the truth."

I spoke up, because I knew Hannelore wouldn't. "She was saving for school—"

"Ha! School!" The Boss ran a tired, veiny hand through his hair. "Might as well light your money on fire and roll around in the ashes. You're a _moron_, Hannelore. The only reason I even let you go to school as long as I did instead of make you get a j-o-b was because you don't know how to break down a _box_.

"Though I didn't know idiots could lie, _and_ try and rub it under the table with food. That's just special."

The Boss walked toward us then, but I knew he wouldn't lay a hand on Hannelore. That line required booze for him to cross. He did the next best thing: he picked up a pancake and tossed it on the ground, limp.

"I should make you pay for these." He laughed, then: "Not like you can afford it.

"And you're lucky I don't call the police."

Hannelore wasn't looking at me or him now. She did the same thing I did, where she stared at her feet and played with her hands and hoped that nobody saw her eyes get red and puffy. And she couldn't speak, because then her voice would break.

This was all my fault, I knew it. I could have warned Hannelore, I could have gotten her out of the house. She would have hurt feelings, but the Boss wouldn't have stripped her down again, like he always did.

Hannelore left out the back door, mumbling something about hoping we enjoyed her cooking regardless.

The kitchen door slammed behind her. The Boss dumped mine and his plates in the trash, lingered a moment, and started back for his room.

"Samantha, clean up that mess in the sink," he droned. "And let me know when you've made breakfast."

…

I woke to the sound of cartoons and laughter. My eyelids pulled apart and the light from the TV singed my retinas. I wondered why everything was so fuzzy and felt for my glasses on my face. They were obviously missing. I groped around the unfocused world until my hands landed on the frames, sitting on the low table.

I put my glasses in their proper place, exhaled, and stared for a moment. The pale white ceiling loomed above me, expressionless.

"Unfamiliar ceiling?"

I didn't just shoot up where I lay, I _jackknifed._

She had walked right out of my memories. Hannelore at the stove, pouring batter into a pan. Her conditioned curls had been pulled back into a loose bun, with a few stray hairs here and there. She remained focused at the steady drip of soon-to-be breakfast, running a rubber spatula along the edges. She mixed in chocolate from a nearby bowl, and was sure to pop a chip into her mouth. The ensuing smile was a nervous reaction.

"Hannelore," I said in awe.

"I hate unfamiliar ceilings," Hannelore went on. "You never really know what a home is until you realize just how important the first thing you see in the morning can be. It's why people like sleeping over with their boyfriends or girlfriends, and why lonely people get companions.

"By the way," Hannelore beamed at me. "You skipped the middle-aged-spinster step and went straight to lonely-woman-with-Pikachu. I'm impressed. My baby sister is all grown up."

I laughed despite myself.

"Anyway, I've got some good news, some even better news, and some awful news," Hannelore went on. She removed the first flapjack from her pan and set it aside, washing the plates as she went. The Boss probably gave us all kinds of crummy complexes neither of us were aware of yet, but keeping a clean sink was admittedly a good habit. "Which one do you want first?"

I slumped over the back of the couch, my upper row of teeth biting into the cushion. Pika sat on the table rocking back and forth, a bottle in his hand.

"Did you give him a ketchup bottle?" I asked.

"Just a little something I picked up at the lab. Mouse Pokemon like sweet liquids, and while they're used to honey because it occurs in nature, things like ketchup and barbecue sauce tickle their taste buds like—Don't change the subject!" Hannelore jabbed the gooey rubber spatula my way.

"Good news first," I said.

"Good news is, breakfast is almost ready!"

"I can see that."

Hannelore either didn't pick up on my lack of excitement, or if she did, she wasn't about to ruin her morning making a fuss of it. "The even better news is, you're here! Hurray!" She threw her arms in the air with the cheer. Uncooked pancake glop flew into the hallway.

"Which brings us to the bad news," Hannelore said as she turned off the stove. I stood up, shook out my head and stretched. I noticed the tall stack of pancakes hidden under a bowl beside her workspace. I must have been out for a while. "We're out of food as soon as we're done eating."

"Out of food, like...starving?"

"Please, no!" Hannelore sang. "The fridge is empty, and I used the last of the eggs to make the pancakes. You're welcome to the Diet Coke, of course."

"Thanks but no thanks, Hanna Banana."

"Right! I remember." You could almost see the exclamation mark over her head. "You believe in the false correlation between aspartame and cancer. Whatever are schools teaching these days..?"

Now, if Conner had said that, I might finally have made good on my promise to beat him into another nationality. When it was Hannelore instead, she delivered the line in the sweetest way possible. She put a finger to her chin and stared up at the ceiling as she gave the insult, then when she was sure you got it, she glanced back at your way and winked.

My sister, everybody. Hannelore Hutchinson, age 22.

We sat at the table now, Hannelore and I with the pancakes between us, and Pika with his ketchup. Frosty mugs of diet death juice all around.

"I've got to be back at work in a few hours, so I need you to get groceries," Hannelore said after eating her first flapjack with a duck-like finesse. "Think you can handle that, baby sister?"

I hesitated.

What were the odds I'd end up as evil-demon-from-another-world chow?

"I know what you're thinking," Hannelore said. "I'm not a monster. I'll give you the money, and the department store isn't as far as you'd think."

"The department store? The one all the way back in the middle of Goldenrod?" I couldn't have been more whiny if my life depended on it.

"It's not that bad! Walk with me to work. I need to take the underground too, so I'll show you which train to take. Oh, and while you're there, be sure to drop off your immigration papers at the ninth floor."

"There's an immigration office in the department store?" Then, slipping accidentally: "What kind of baloney-world is this country..?"

"That's what I said!" Hannelore laughed. Without warning, she slammed her silverware down and jumped up. "I forgot!"

"What?" I asked with a mouth full of pancake.

"I heard this song the other day at work. You'll _love_ it." She ran to the small stereo beside the TV and clicked a few buttons. Hannelore knows I'm a sucker for eighties music with cheery guitars and hot Unovan boys...

We spent the next couple hours exactly the way I imagined we would. We threw a dance party and let the whole album run. Pika started eating the leftovers, and when we tried to take them away he threw the food at us—the audacity!—and that began an impromptu food fight. Clean-up took just long enough for Hannelore to escape into the bathroom and blast her own music over the sound of the shower. While she was doing her thing, I finally became acquainted with my room, jumping on the full-sized mattress and loving how I had my own bookshelf, but with nothing in it yet. This was my home now, ready and waiting for me to take it.

Granted, there were some pitfalls. Hannelore's building had shared laundry rooms on each floor, so I would have to lug my underwear, socks, and sweaters into the public sphere once a week. Her wireless Internet was monitored by the Company—considering they paid for it, that made a dystopian kind of sense—so I couldn't download any music. On a related note, Netflix wasn't yet available outside of Kanto.

But seeing as how I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted without being screamed at, all was good.

Within reason, of course. Chores have to get done, and I can't throw ludicrous house parties with my staggering number of close chums. Those old people on the top floor would maim me.

Hannelore ran from the bathroom to her bedroom, and emerged twenty minutes later in a fancy skirt with a black top.

"Hanna Banana, since when did you wear high heels?" I pointed.

"Since I became a grown-up," she answered slyly. "Let's go, I might already be late. Do you have everything?"

I triple-checked. My headphones still worked, I had my key, my phone was charged—Hannelore gave me her correct phone number, thank God—and I filled my trusty messenger bag with my paperwork. Beloved Safari Zone Summer Camp sweater and glasses in place. I had to fight Pika to get the ketchup out of his hands.

"Ready!" I said.

Hannelore locked the door behind us and we started for the elevator. I carried Pika when we stepped inside, and a woman older than me and Hannelore put together and tripled stared daggers into us. If there was a policy on Pokemon, I was willing to bet Hannelore had no clue of it.

The underground was only a five or six minute walk away from Hannelore's apartment building. I instantly felt under-dressed. An army of men in power suits and women with pointy shoulderpads crammed into the two escalators going down into the station proper. We followed from one mass of people to the other, now waiting behind an automated ticket counter. Hannelore swiped her credit card and bought me a student pass.

"That reminds me!" Hannelore said. "Your papers have your school information, too. You'll be at Village High, we can go there on the weekend." Then:"Don't give me that look! You'll make friends."

"I've never made friends, Hannelore."

"Yeah, but this is different. You're in Johto now, Sam. It's a whole new place, with a brand new attitude!"

Sometimes, Hannelore can be a bit over-energized.

The paths diverged, the A train pointing further down the same way and the B,C, and F trains going downstairs.

"I'm on the C train, but you're the A," Hannelore instructed. "It's easy, though. Just look for the train that says 'Radio Tower' and follow it until it hits the department store. The train goes in this direction." She waved her arm across her face.

"You mean it goes north, not south?"

"Yeesh, Samantha, your impudence is showing."

We traded sly smiles. Pika started fidgeting in my arms, so I eased up on my grip and he crawled onto my shoulders. Hannelore watched him with a furrowed brow.

"Where did you pick him up?" She asked.

"Around," I trailed off. I turned and started going before she had a chance to ask in-depth questions. I wished her a great day and blended in with the crowd.

I can't hate Hannelore for being herself, but I was able to take a train across two countries on my own. I was pretty sure I could handle an underground train system. I crammed into the A train when it came, and Pika had to sit in my messenger bag to avoid shocking anyone with his tail by accident. For a wild Pikachu, he really was well behaved.

While the train turned this way and that, and while I listened to the eighties' guitars in my headphones, I wondered if I should be wondering about Pika's origins. A random Pikachu with a busted-up ear runs out at me from inside a space from another world, and he's well behaved?

That Amber girl felt the same kind of suspicion, I realized. She may have gone about it the entirely wrong way, but she did mean well.

That's all that separates the Hannelores from the Bosses, I imagine. The sisters from the fathers.

'Next stop: Department Store', the train's computer voice droned. Just my luck: I was the only person getting off. I fought my way through the wall of humans and barely got onto the platform before the doors slammed.

Pika jumped out of my bag and back onto my shoulders.

"Okay, so we're here," I said. The only elevator was labeled with a bright red 'exit' sign. "Ninth floor for my paperwork, then just picking up groceries. How hard could that be?"

Pika slumped over, and his ear stabbed me in the chin.

"You're no help," I chided.

My adventures to the ninth floor can be described as a Circus of Mistakes.

The schedule of events went something like this:

First up, it turns out escalator etiquette is actually a thing. I didn't know about said etiquette until a woman barreled past me, almost knocked my face into the steel escalator step, and yelled something at me in an incomprehensible accent.

That brings me to mistake two: "I can't understand a word you're saying, girlie," said the man at the information desk. "Your English is _awful!_"

Third mistake: carrying Pika without any kind of contingency for other Pokemon trying to attack him.

...Which loops back to Mistake 2.1.

Me: "Officer, that man started the fight. Pika just sat on my shoulder until he was attacked by that person's Arbok."

The officer: "Ach, where'd you learn to talk? You sound like mah grandma's old boot."

I think making it to the ninth floor sapped my Luck Budget for the month.

Once we were there, nothing terribly important went down. The lady at the desk—one of those sweet faces with her glasses on a lanyard and her gray curls tied up—took my paperwork, processed it, handed me my Central Goldenrod state ID, and offered me a caramel lozenge. She might have even pinched my cheek if I stayed around and let her.

"Don't forget, your winter term starts in two weeks!" The lady called as I left. Then, when she probably thought I was out of earshot: "Oh, to be fifteen again...When the boys are fresh as mountain snow..."

Pika and I traded glances as we went back in the elevator.

"Don't look at me," I said. "This place is _weird_."

The main grocery store was on the third floor. The Pokemon-Trainer-y things were the first and second floors, which did make sense. If I had come in off the street entrance, I would have passed the Pokemon Gym. I read online that Whitney has a reputation for being That One Gym-Leader. As in, "I would have gone all the way to the Indigo Plateau, if not for That One Gym-Leader!"

The supermarket looked like I expected. Rows of shelves, different food separated into aisles, a produce section and candy bars by the check-out clerks. I had to pay a dollar to rent a cart, which was new.

I looked at the grocery list Hannelore texted me as we were walking earlier. If you turn off your brain and ignore how milk is half as expensive as back home while Pokemon food costs an arm and a leg, shopping is easy. The cart was almost full and I hadn't made a complete fool of myself. I even bought Pika a bottle of barbecue sauce, as well as a fresh and non-nibbled ketchup bottle for me and Hannelore.

I looked down to change the song on my phone when he turned the aisle with a dolly of soda cartons.

What I didn't hear: "Coming through! Watch out!"

Like clockwork, I answered at the last minute and chaos ensued. My cart tumbled and crashed on the floor, and the dolly spun out of control. The boxes of soda glided across the clean tile and bounced into each other like bumper cars. I chased after the boxes, and whoever crashed into me was running for my groceries. I brought them back with an embarrassed smile.

"Sorry about that," I said, hoping against odds that this wouldn't be the upteenth person to point out my Kanto accent.

"No, it was my fault," he said. "I should have been going slower, my head just isn't...Sam?"

Circus of Mistakes gets an encore.

Henry's face lit up. He stacked my groceries back in the cart with finesse, but his eyes lingered on me. "Sam and Pika! How are you two? I didn't bruise anything, did I?"

I willed myself to speak. "I'm fine, really. You...work here?" Then: "Stupid question. You're in a collared shirt and everything. There's even a name tag."

I read the tag more closely. "Assistant Manager?" I gawked. "Here I thought you were just another boy...Not just any boy, but..."

Sam, shut _up_!

"It's not that impressive," Henry said meekly. "My family owns this place and I—I wasn't supposed to tell you that!" He grabbed empty space at the top of his head, felt something wasn't there—his beanie cap?—and glued his arms back down.

In his best professional voice: "Is there anything I can help you with, ma'am?"

"Nothing at all, sir," I giggled. "Just headed for check-out."

"Down the aisle, right before the exit. On your way then, and have a wonderful day!" Henry said in a false-baritone.

Pika gave me a knowing look from the cart's kiddie chair the entire wait in check-out. I started arguing with him— "Don't look at me like that! I am _not_ a tramp! Just because I'm chatty with a boy I barely know, you do _not_ get the right to—"At which point I noticed people staring at the strange girl with the goofy accent yelling at an innocent Pokemon.

I shut my trap, paid for the food with the money Hannelore had given me, and used the spare money to grab a candy bar on the way out. I almost cranked the music back up when I heard Henry calling after me.

"Hey!" He said, catching his breath. He had been running. "I hoped I'd catch you."

"You just saw me," I pointed weakly to back to the aisles. "What's up?"

I could tell from the way his brow furrowed and how he put his hands in his pockets. Not-flirting was over. "I spoke with Conner a second ago."

"What, does he have you on speed dial?"

"He has all of us on speed dial. He calls it the Avengers Assemble procedure...Anyway," Henry waved a hand in the air. "The fourth date is tomorrow, and I know I said I'd give you some time to think about everything that happened yesterday, but you'll be in danger if I don't at least tell you everything."

I surprised myself when I processed everything he said.

Of course, I still did that stupid stand-with-my-mouth-catching-bugs thing.

"Are you free tonight?" He asked urgently.

I nodded once, twice.

"I don't mean like...later on. The whole night. Are you okay with that?"

A little red flag went up. "Where are you taking me?" I asked dubiously.

"Ilex Forest," Henry said. "It's important, you'll see. Meet me at South Entrance at six?"

My mind was screaming 'no', but every other part of me wanted to go with him.

...I don't have boys asking me out to scary forests that often, okay?

Henry was about to go back inside anyway, but a portly man with stringy hair on his round head stormed out past the aisles and started waving his fat hands in the air.

"Henry! You're here to _work_, not to knock up the locals! Move your ass, I need you in aisle six."

Both of us recoiled at the sheer volume of the man's voice. Henry scratched the back of his head.

"Family, right?" He smiled weakly. Henry's father started for the two of us. I turned tail and got out of the store before I caused a work-related meltdown.

…

Ignoring how Henry's father had something of a temper on him, I spent the ride in the underground, the walk back home, and the twenty minutes putting groceries away with my head torn between the earth and the sky. Or, in less-flowery terms, between being excited to with Henry or being terrified.

After all, today had been terrific so far. Hannelore and I were together again. Pika began a love affair with barbecue sauce that would last for as long as it took Mrs. Ketchup to get wise and dump him. I even had the patience to save the candy bar until I got home, where I could break it up in some ice cream and sit in my room with headphones and deliciousness. I don't know precisely when it all crashed and burned in my face. Maybe somewhere between going into my own room without being shouted at to do housework first. Maybe it was when I wrapped into a ball on my own mattress, listened to my own music on the phone that would go dead after this month when the Boss stopped paying the bill. Or maybe it was when I realized that Henry only wanted to talk to me because I was 'sensitive to the Twilight' or some crazy mess.

It occurred to me then: I was living something of a false life.

I mean, bear with me here. I ran away from home, I don't know the first thing about school standards and manners and things here, and oh, there's something about the Unseen trying to eat people.

As that thought occurred to me, a near-tangible guilt washed over me. Today was nothing but a series of stolen moments from a larger life that only I, Samantha Hutchinson, could resolve.

I checked the time. Just after four, and according to the schedule, it would take an hour and a half to get to South Entrance.

Pika had been my only company in my ice cream wonderland, sitting at the foot of the bed with his barbecue bottle.

I wondered if Pika dreaded going outside anymore than I did.

…

The train zoomed flawlessly regardless of where it took you, but every station looked different. Yeah, that should have been obvious, but Saffron City had a monorail instead of an underground, and it had no delusions of class. If you took the monorail into a scuzzy part of town, you saw the scuz long before you disembarked. With the underground, every train platform looked just like the last. The only exception, I'd read, was the Central Entrance and how it was a virtual shrine to Miltank.

That made me laugh a bit. Miltank, the choice Pokemon of That One Gym-Leader. Like the city was telling Trainers, 'You see this guy? You'll be seeing him a lot.'

Anyway, like I was going to say pre-Miltank-tangent, South Entrance was quite a bit nicer than I imagined. Since we had to pass under that Conner kid's neighborhood, I imagined some run-down buildings and some grabby old guys and thugs up on the surface. My surprise when I got off the underground elevator and saw a full band busking on a street corner. We were in the middle of another hip shopping district, this one even more unaffordable than the Village, thanks to the in-coming Trainers having spending cash.

Pika "accidentally" zapped me with his tail after an extended minute of gawking and listening to live music.

"We're going, we're going," I told him. "What's the rush? Henry won't be here for..."

It occurred to me I had no idea where to meet Henry.

When he said South Entrance, I figured it would be just one big fence separating the countryside from the city, probably labeled 'South Entrance'. Was _everything_ in Goldenrod just another pretty money trap?

A little voice said: "You could call him, nitwit."

I did as I was told.

Henry picked up on the first ring. "Sam?"

"I'm here," I said meekly. "At least, I think I'm here. This place is kind of huge."

"I know, sorry about that! It's kind of loud over here, too. Do you know where you are?"

I put a hand over my other ear. The lead singer in that band decided to show off his accordion skills. "I just got off the underground," I offered.

"Oh! So did I! But I don't see you," Henry said.

"Let me help. Can you hear that awful accordion?"

A pause, then Henry laughing: "Is that supposed to be 'Tiny Dancer'? It sounds like a truck's mating call..."

"I'm right across the street from them." I started looking for a white beanie cap, but didn't see anything. A bunch of twentysomethings with fancy bags and sunglasses and groomed beards and fancy sports cars, no white beanie cap—

A quick tap on my shoulder. I jumped a foot in the air.

"Behind you," Henry said over the phone. I hung up the call, turned around, and put on my best 'pouty' face.

"Not funny?" He asked.

"Not funny."

"Sorry," he said.

We felt it at the same time: the conversation had stalled thanks to my being a grouch, and we just stood there with a man belting out sad lyrics over a sad accordion.

"Shall we?" Henry offered, pointing behind him. "We have a few minutes to kill, and I'm kind of cold...and there's a coffee place around the corner.

"Unless you don't like that idea," he backtracked, responding to the growing anger in my expression.

_God_. You know, if this was a business trip, he could _not_ ask me to a very date-ly activity. And was he always nervous and always apologizing, or was that because of me?

Let it be known, world! Anyone who says boys aren't confusing deserves to be taken into the street and shot.

"No, that sounds nice," I said a little too earnestly.

"Great. It gives us some more space to talk, too." His voice lowered again, the way it had in the department store. All pretense of friendship disappeared when that _other_ topic came up. "It's a lot to take in, though. The story is kind of cyclical...everything feeds into itself. Me and Amber and Conner, the Twilight, the Dome and the Unseen and Mission Clears...Where should I start?'

How was I supposed to know? He was my guide into the world of their being other worlds. "Wherever you think you should start," I said, unsure.

"Fair enough," he laughed. Then, dead serious: "Let's start with Celebi."

...

Thanks everyone for reading this far! It's definitely a confidence booster to know that people see this and enjoy it.


	4. Teenagers and their secrets

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

- "Teenagers and their secrets."

We lived in a universe of many dimensions, and the two that were at war at present didn't even scratch the surface. Those two universes—the one Pokemon and people and boys and girls and corrupt politicians live in, and the one with the Unseen—exist in parallel. That was the general idea, at any rate. It's how both worlds could co-exist in the same reality context without overlapping.

"That's what's happening now?" I asked, topping off my hot chocolate with a few generous spritzes of nutmeg. "They're not parallel anymore?"

"Yeah, but they're not acting as wonky as you'd think," Henry said. "If I can make an example..."

He set the drink on the small round table and bent his arms up straight, then inched them together ever so slightly.

"That, right there," Henry nodded to where his thumbs touched at the very tips, "would be Goldenrod City."

Only a handful of Pokemon have the power to warp the dimensions.

"There's the Jirachi Wishmaker, that alien Deoxys guy, Arceus, the elemental birds put together could probably do it," Henry counted off.

"That brings us to Celebi?"

"That brings us to Celebi," Henry agreed. "This part requires some Goldenrod backstory. You know about Ilex Forest, right?"

I shook my head. Pika sat on my lap and mimicked the motion.

"You're kidding. How about the GS Ball?"

Another negative. Henry's jaw dropped.

"The relationship between Celebi and Suicune? How Pokemon Master Ethan fought alongside Suicune in a total gambit play to get him to work with Celebi, who brought him three years into the past to defeat Giovanni and prevent a second Team Rocket insurgency?"

"I think you got spit on my glasses," I said kindly.

Henry did his adorable blushing thing again. "Sorry. But...what, did you grow up under a rock?"

I forgot, he didn't know I was still clocking in my first seventy-two hours on this side of the continent. Before he could ask any uncomfortable questions, I hurried the conversation along. "So, what? Did Celebi decide one day to wreck this...what did you call it, reality context?"

He got quiet, breaking eye contact and stirring his coffee with a lame hand.

"It's okay if you can't tell me," I said indignantly. "I'm not going to beat it out of you—"

"Nah, it's not that. It's that we have no idea whyCelebi _specifically_ has anything to do with this.

"See, it starts with Celebi, and Celebi is tied to the GS Ball myth. Back when Azalea Town first started making Apricot Balls—wait, you know what those are, right?"

"Pokeballs...made from...apricots?"

He made a face.

"Moving on. The GS Ball was designed to capture Celebi specifically, and nobody else. The Johto Prime Minister trusted the technology to whomever could claim the title of strongest Pokemon Master between Kanto and Johto.

"Bit of fun history, that," Henry showed a hint of a Johto brogue. "When Ethan beat Red at Mt. Silver, everyone thought it was just some 'there can be only one' battle of the titans, right? _Wrong_. The Prime Minister used some bogus judicial power and ordered Ethan to either play along or go to prison for the rest of his life."

"I find that hard to believe," I said. "He's a Pokemon Master. What did the government have on him?"

"No clue. What we do know is, the Kanto President came after Red the same way and Red ran. Ethan and Red battling it out wasn't a final showdown, Sam. It was Ethan hunting Red down on government orders.

"In retrospect, I probably should have said that a little more quietly." Henry hushed himself.

"Wait, don't stop now. You were starting to make sense. So Ethan beat Red at Mt. Silver, and he...what, he took the GS Ball and went to catch Celebi?" I paused. "Wait, though. You said Ethan worked with Celebi before..?"

"They beat Giovanni together, right," Henry said. "You know how Ethan has been at the Battle Frontier for the last four years?"

I did the math. I can do _some_ math, give me some slack.

Four years ago, Ethan and Red duked it out. And three years before _that_, Red became the first Pokemon Master while Ethan, from the future apparently, went and beat the Team Rocket guy.

"My head hurts," I whined.

"I can tell. I think there's smoke coming out of your ears."

"You're not helping with the mind-screw-y-ness, Henry!"

"Here's the screwdriver," he said, remembering to be quiet this time. "The Battle Frontier in Hoenn is a political cluster. Hoenn owns the land, but Kanto financed the buildings and keeps the publicity running. Steven and the Frontier Brains took Ethan's side in the conflict, and since Kanto and Johto don't really want to start a war..."

"I feel like this isn't on topic."

"It totally is!" Henry downed the rest of his coffee in three rapid gulps. My hot chocolate was still steaming. "That's how Celebi got the technology for its own Pokeballs, because Ethan, all the way at Battle Frontier where he's basically a refugee, gave Celebi the GS Ball tech."

When he saw my look of abject confusion, Henry added slyly: "I said it was a cyclical kind of story."

…

We took the discussion outside. The main strip of fancy boutiques ended at a ten-foot-tall fence with Miltank statues on both sides. The road was paved with fancy stones, commemorating the Gym Leaders before Whitney.

I knew we were finally in the country when the grass crinkled under my sneakers. Pika bounced off of my shoulder and ran in circles, his energy overflowing into the surroundings.

I massaged my temples.

"Ethan gives Celebi the tech for making a super Pokeball that can catch something that warps dimensions," I said.

"That's how it went, yeah," Henry said. He took the advantage of being outside to stretch his arms in the air and take long, wild steps. "Hey, there's a lake this way. Walk with me?"

I followed. The lake had frozen over. Pidgey and Spearow walked along the icy surface, occasionally nipping at the frosty surface and jolting back up. Henry paused at the lake's edge and shoved his hands in his pockets with enough force to suggest some complex inner turmoil underneath the white beanie cap and anxious smile.

We stood there for a minute, watching our breaths form shallow clouds and disappearing.

"Right, so we left off with Celebi. Now, he's a dimension warper. He controls space and time and whatnot. When our world bungled into the other one, he was one of the first to know."

I made an effort to ignore that cryptic 'one of'.

"There are a ton of gaps in the story, but somehow, Celebi got involved and decided to change the playing field—

"Wait, I messed up. I should probably explain the other dimension first."

I shrugged again and this time, Henry pouted. "You know, if I'm boring you, you're free to leave and not know what in the world is going on tomorrow..."

"Don't be so touchy! Explain this other dimension bit," I prodded. I _was_ getting more bored than I was confused, but admitting that was rude.

"We don't have a name for the other world, so it's just kind of...I don't know, referred to?" Henry said. "Its rules are pretty similar to our own. It has humans and Pokemon co-existing, building societies and kind of advancing the general well-being of the world. Written language, technology, Pokeballs...the works. It's got two things we don't have over here."

"The Unseen, right?"

"That's the first one, yeah," Henry nodded. He reminded me of Hannelore when she would explain Pokemon Center or lab work. Total engagement in the material, but total devotion to explaining it effectively. They would both make great teachers. "Though Conner's theory, they came second. The first thing that other world has is a very literal bond between humans and Pokemon."

"Bond," I said again. "Like...bond-bond? Like in those dopey songs? 'You'll teach me and I'll teach you' and all that jazz?"

"Exactly! In that other world, when a Pokemon is bonded to a human, that Pokemon's power is ramped up. It doesn't seem like there's a constant to how much more powerful a Pokemon gets—Conner's Staravia can't hold a candle to Amber's Liligant—but that boost is essential.

"Conner doesn't have a clue what happened to the bonded Pokemon and their Trainers, but the Unseen are going after separate humans, individual Pokemon without bonds. The Unseen aren't _of_ that dimension, but they were there before they came here, so Conner treats the Unseen like they're native to that dimension for purposes of conversation."

I took a breath.

"I'm being a poindexter, aren't I?"

"Just a tiny bit." I held up my finger and thumb, an inch apart. "I get the gist...but if you asked me to explain what you said back to you, I'd probably go home."

Henry laughed. "I'll take your word on it."

"The Unseen attack individuals," I said, trying to pull my weight in the discussion. "Why don't they go after bonded opponents? You know, someone their own size?"

I remembered how the Unseen from yesterday had no qualms against killing Pika and me, but when Henry showed up, it recognized a worthy adversary and took a stance. A very creepy, alien-geometry-stance, but still.

Henry's response was to raise an eyebrow.

I wonder if he saw the exclamation mark over my head?

"You don't mean...the Unseen didn't kill all—?"

"That's the theory we're subscribing to, at least," Henry said gravely.

"Walk with me, it gets the brain churning." Henry started down the bank, and I followed along. I never noticed how long his legs were before. Two of his steps to every one of mine; I felt like I was four and stumbling after Hannelore. "This is the part where I lay down the rules and try to bring it together."

"Key word being 'try'," I said.

Henry waved a hand between the two of us. "I like this, Sam. We're on the same page. It makes my ridiculous explanations and your droll sarcasm flow." We traded smiles.

"When the dimensions intersect, we call that the Twilight. It's at four o'clock on a handful of days. It casts the Dome over a specific part of Goldenrod, and if you're a normal person, you just go into a negative space until the Twilight ends.

"If you're like me, like Amber and Conner, and like a few others...which you are," Henry nodded, "Then you don't disappear. You're stuck in the Dome, running from the Unseen along with the sensitive people from the other dimension. The Dome doesn't time-out or anything, mind you."

"You're talking about Mission Clears," I offered.

"Bang on. The catch is, only a bonded Pokemon and Trainer can take on a mission, and if the condition is failed, the Dome just stays up."

I didn't ask what would happen in _that_ condition.

The scenery gradually changed from grassy plains to shrubbery and taller trees. Weedle and Kakuna hid up in the branches, and those infamous patches of tall grass started to surround us more often than not. Pika didn't want a fight any more than I did. He walked along the ground barely an inch behind me, watching out all the time for obstacles on the path with his beady eyes.

"Here's an example," Henry said. "The Dome for yesterday went up in the Village at four. You were there, and you were sensitive, so when everyone else went away, you remained. The condition was to keep all the un-bonded humans alive while defeating the Unseen. It was just you and that other guy, so if it had been only him and he died, who knows what might have happened."

"But you saved me," my voice caught. "You saved me and the Dome came down."

"Mission Clear," Henry said.

The trees covered the sky now. In a few minutes, it would be pitch-black around us. We had entered Ilex Forest sometime back, and I never noticed. Way to let a boy lure you into the middle of nowhere, Samantha.

"There's one thing I left out," Henry said. "Conner would probably stop here, push up his glasses and ask if you can figure it out. If it were up to Amber, she would have wrecked him the first time he pulled that...So!" He smiled, asking the same question without asking it.

I looked at my hands, fidgeted with them. They were becoming colder and harder to move as the sun went down and the temperature dropped.

"I guess if there's a stupid question to ask..."

"There are no stupid questions," Henry said predictably.

"If I had to ask one...What does that have to do with Celebi?"

I must have gotten it right: Henry shot a fist in the air.

"And Dad says I'd make a terrible manager," he said jokingly. "Check this out, it'll blow your mind."

"My mind's been pretty blown so far," I said honestly. None of this would even sink for hours, by which point I'd be scared out of my skin.

"Humans and Pokemon don't have that same bond in this dimension because our _Pokemon_, not us as people, don't have the capability. Genetics, or even magic, whatever. But to stand a fighting chance against the Unseen to bring the Domes down and get Mission Clears, the sensitive humans here have to get Pokemon from that other dimension."

I did a little hop as I pieced that it together.

...Then, I stopped dead in my tracks.

It had started to sink in.

By 'it', I mean 'the colossal mess I had wandered into, which had every intention of claiming my life.'

By 'it', I mean how that colossal mess was so much bigger than myself and my daddy drama, so much bigger than Hannelore wanting to one day go back to school and bigger than the Boss and our mother and the reason he became the way he is now.

By 'it', I mean the real reason Henry showed so much interest in me.

"Celebi _is_ behind everything," I awed.

"The three of us—Conner, Amber, and I—found our Pokeballs at Celebi's altar not far from here. We used them to catch the Pokemon from under the Dome. The Celebi Balls activate the Pokemon's bond, and it keeps them here when the Dome closes.

"The Unseen probably could have destroyed the world in the first Twilight if the three of us weren't ready for them," Henry said. We took a sharp turn. "The altar's just up this way. I'm thinking you'll have a Celebi Ball waiting for you. Running around with a Pokemon that fights an Unseen for you...it's exactly like me and Hammo."

"What _is_ Hammo? Or...Star..?"

"Staravia is normally native to Sinnoh, according to Conner's data. And Amber's Liligant is from Unova, same as my Tepig." Then, with a smirk: "I just call him 'Hammo'."

...I caught him in the lie, then.

"You knew that Pika wasn't mine," I said.

"Come again?"

"Back at Conner's lab, when you defended me to keep Amber from hurting me. You made it sound like Pika and I were long-time friends, or something."

"Wait, you're _not_? Sam, you _lied_ to me!" He put a hand to his chest and gasped.

I'm not sure who smiled first that time.

We walked along in silence. Henry pulled the collar of his beanie down so it covered most of his head, and he kind of resembled a walking sock. Not that I blamed him: I pulled up the hood on my sweater and yanked the chords tight. It was probably snowing outside the cover of the forest.

I had never seen the altar before, so like when Henry took my phone and gave it back with his phone number, I expected something more than what I actually got. For everything Celebi did in this story, you'd think its altar held cloistered nuns. In the real world, it was a sad little brick structure that barely reached my waist.

That's exactly when Pika decided to jump in front of us and charge up its cheeks.

I called for him. "Pika!" Then, like a parent: "What do you think you're doing? Get back here!"

A pack of Weedle blocked our path, and Pika must have seen them coming. The four Weedle meant business. You could tell from the way they stopped and bent themselves upright, only bending just at the neck to jab their pointers threateningly.

Pika refused to back down. The electricity flowed wildly, a torrent of blue light.

"Great timing," Henry said drolly. He pulled his own Celebi Ball and tossed it. Hammo—known to most as a Tepig—burst onto the scene. Hammo was a hair too late: Pika zapped the ground and jumped into the air to avoid a counter-attack. The pack of Weedle froze and collapsed, probably cooked to a satisfying medium-well.

Cue the pair of Beedrill racing out at us from the trees, eyes red like molten-hot rage. Pika landed in a branch and jumped again before one of the Beedrill could catch it with its humongous stinger. But Pika wasn't attacking...what was it waiting for?

"Sam?"

"What?" I asked, refusing to turn away from a Pika in peril.

"You know how to battle, right? You've battled before?"

"Like a Pokemon battle? No," I answered curtly. Pika dived past another rushing tackle, but cut it too close for comfort.

"Sam, you're a Trainer now. You're a team. It jumped out to protect you, and it needs orders—Hammo, great dodge. Ember attack!"

I pulled away just long enough to watch Hammo slide past the one Beedrill's attack, open his little jaw, and launch the flaming missiles from before. Beedrill fell like an anchor, weighed down by its burning wings and seared flesh.

Hammo turned to the other Beedrill, but Henry held a hand out. Hammo stopped in its tracks.

Great.

"You're going to make me do this on my own, aren't you?"

"It's either here or inside the Dome tomorrow," Henry said coyly.

Pika jumped out of the way of another attack, but there were no more branches for it to leap to. He hurtled to the ground, catching himself at the last second and back-flipping into a stance. For a bunch of fat mice, you wouldn't think Pikachu are so graceful.

I ran through the attacks a Pikachu probably knew.

Note to self: thank television later.

"Pika!" And when Pika's ear perked up: "Thundershock it!"

True to form, Pika shut its eyes and seemed to flex every muscle in its being. The electric torrent in its system turned to a pointed rocket, shocking the flying insect and bringing it down.

I took a moment to catch my breath.

"The fighting's over," I said. I meant to relax Pika, but we all knew I was talking to myself.

"That's your first battle," Henry said. Hammo took a familiar position, walking no more and no less than six inches behind him. "How did it feel?"

"Pika didn't attack," I said in awe. "He could have been hurt..."

"Yeah, battles can end like that."

I ignored the sarcasm. "But he attacked that first time..."

"Its in Pika's nature to attack first, I suppose. Every Pokemon has a different nature. Hammo likes to just take it slow. Right, buddy?"

I swear, Hammo shrugged exactly like Henry would.

Henry smirked when I pointed and my jaw hung. "That's the bond, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, close your jaw unless you want more bugs coming at us, yeah?" He nudged my mouth shut with the tip of his finger.

We walked the last few paces to the altar in silence. Pika took the lead now, glaring back and forth with a stare that meant business. Hammo, meanwhile, brought up the rear and had his head so far in the clouds, he probably saw airplanes go by.

"Here we are," Henry said. "Moment of truth."

I didn't want to see it.

I didn't want to believe it, either.

I mean, help me here. Be in my shoes for a second. You just move someplace and some kid says you're part of a team that has to protect the world, and it occurs to you right then—_right then—_that a Celebi Ball waiting for you means you're like him.

And you're torn, because on the one hand, you're a sane person. You know that you don't want any part in saving the world from evil abominations from the hell planet, because you could end up dead. D-e-a-d dead.

...But something wants there to be a Celebi Ball anyway.

Part of you wants to belong.

Because part of you hasn't belonged to a group of anything—not friends, not classmates and not family—for so long that even joining up with a veritable suicide pact makes sense. You can't explain it, but you want to be able to relate to other kids your own age. You want something to bridge the gap between yourself—your fat, lazy, acne-infested, four-eyed self—and the first boy who was ever nice to you in your entire life.

...And there it was, under the altar. Shining all of the colors of the rainbow, waves of color dancing and twirling into and outside themselves like a pool of all existence.

There was me. The future me, and all that it would entail.

Pika nudged it with his tail.

"That's mine, huh?"

"All yours," Henry said.

I nodded.

Then: "This is the moment of truth, right? So what, if I touch the Celebi Ball, there's no going back and I'm stuck fighting Unseen for my entire life?"

"We don't know that," Henry said truthfully. "They could be gone after the dates are up. Though to answer your question, the moment of truth is when Pika goes in the ball."

"Because then it bonds to me?"

"Well," Henry drew the word out. "That depends. He's already bonding to you, by our definition."

Henry used Zig-Zag! It's super effective!

Pika stopped poking the ball and started sniffing it. When he was sure it wouldn't jump out and get him, Pika opened his tiny mouth and almost bit it.

"Cut that out," I chided. Pika didn't pull back, but he didn't bite the ball, either. I inched closer to the altar, fighting off the angels on my shoulder telling me whether or not this was a good idea.

Good angel You're helping save the world.

Bad angel: You're being a martyr for the world.

Me: Would both of you be quiet?

I felt the Celebi Ball's weight as soon as my fingers made contact with it. I had never felt a Pokeball before, but right away this one was special. The colors twisted depending on where I placed my fingers, almost like a mood ring, if that makes sense. The lock and line going around the ball were entirely transparent, meaning that if you didn't know any better, you wouldn't think it was a Pokeball at all. It was a ball of endless color, moving on its own into infinity.

I picked it up and stood slowly. Henry and Hammo had been eying me the whole time.

I cracked a wry grin.

"Ta-daa."

…

"You don't have to make Pika go inside right away," Henry suggested. We had taken the same train to get to our homes. According to Henry, it was actually quicker to take my train, get off with me, and transfer at the station to another train that ran infrequently. It reeked suspiciously of BS, but I could use the company. "I get that this is a lot to take in. You should take your time."

Henry showed me how to minimize a Pokeball, and so I put it in my hoodie pocket and fiddled with it. He had retired Hammo back to its ball once we left the forest. "What are you smirking at?" He asked accusingly.

"I don't _have_ time to take in," I said matter-of-factly. "Tomorrow is a Twilight, right? So I'll be there with you whether I like it or not."

"Hey, I _did_ make sense!" Henry beamed. When he came back to earth: "Tomorrow _is_ a Twilight, but we're used to working as a group of three. Think of tomorrow as a trial run. You'll just shadow one of us."

"I'm like an intern," I groaned.

"I wasn't going to put it quite like that," Henry shrank. I knew I wasn't being the most optimistic or conversational girl in Goldenrod, but I was one of the two girls with a Celebi Ball and some crazy battle with destiny, so I felt I was entitled to a hissy fit.

The train pulled in to my stop. I got up fast, but Henry sat up slowly. He patted Pika on its head with one hand and pulled his beanie down with the other.

"You sure you're okay?" He asked.

I nodded. I caught a glimpse of the train schedule, darting past on the display above us. Henry's train came in the next minute or so.

Henry stole my attention again. "I'm not in any hurry," he confessed. "If you need me to walk with you or anything..."

"I'll be fine," I said dryly.

Henry pursed his lips and nodded once, twice, a third time was the charm.

"Come on, Pika," I said. He jumped to what was quickly becoming his assigned seat on my shoulder. "Let's get home."

My legs carried me to Hannelore's apartment building on their own. My nose knew not to react to the cigarette smoke, and my hand pressed the call button on auto-pilot.

I banged my head against the elevator door as it closed behind me. Pika poked me in the second chin with his small paw. It tickled just a bit.

"I'm fine," I told him. "Just...I'll be fine. It's starting to sink in a bit, that's all."

The door opened, and by dint of sheer willpower—that and wanting to ball up under the covers and never come out—I made it to the front door of our apartment. I heard laughter from inside, but was too drained to think one step further. Hannelore's laughter was so ingrained in my psyche, it was probably unhealthy...who was the male voice?

I pushed the door open.

"Sam!" Hannelore sat up quickly. She sat at the table across from a man her age, with a five o'clock shadow and a suit that obviously cost more than the entire apartment. The slick haircut and fancy watch told me he worked for the Company. The bright smile from Hannelore said he was a friend, if not more than that. "Sam, I didn't think you would be home so late. It's past one in the morning."

"Sorry," I said weakly.

"I tried calling you," Hannelore said urgently.

I apologized again, this time even more lifelessly than before. Hannelore's eyes narrowed—one of the few signs that her temper was rising—but she remained her sweet self.

"Sam, this is my boss, Mr. McCall," she said.

"It's nice to meet you, Samantha," Mr. McCall said. His face and body looked no older than twenty-two, but nobody told his deep baritone voice that. "I've heard quite a bit about you, and your Pikachu friend as well. How are you liking Goldenrod?"

"It's nice." I mentally added: it's going to try and kill me tomorrow, but it's nice.

"Hey, I'm going to knock out?" I asked Hannelore. I knew better than to just walk out of a conversation, especially since it would make Hannelore look like she's housing some hoodlum. "It was nice to meet you, Mr. McCall," I said politely.

"Certainly," he said smoothly. I left before Hannelore could protest.

I pushed my bedroom door open by pushing my whole body weight against it. It flew open, and I collapsed onto the bed.

"I hope she's okay," Hannelore said.

"I wouldn't worry about it. Teenagers and their secrets, you know? I remember what I was like at her age," McCall said.

"I suppose so..."

"Pika?" I whispered. "Do me a solid, buddy? Close the door?

"Thanks, pal," I said when the door slid closed. I pulled my clothes off and dove under the fresh sheets, balling up just like I wanted. All I had to do now was sleep and never come out.

* * *

Thanks for reading this far! This story is hard to write, so anyone enjoying it makes it worthwhile.


	5. What's your family like?

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

- "What's your family like?"

I've had exactly one best friend in my life.

She's not that important to the end of the world per se, but like with the Celebi Balls story, my life is kind of cyclical. Yes? Okay.

I was eleven, and it was sixth grade. Mom had just passed away, and the Boss had gotten custody of us for that first month. The timing couldn't have been better, and by that I mean it was downright awful: we started the new school term in September, like everyone else. Unlike everyone else, Hannelore and I had gone through a family trauma the likes of which can and do define a person. Hannelore was starting her senior year of High School that year, but I got to do one better and go from my familiar and safe North Street Elementary to Indigo Middle School.

You can imagine how the whole meet-and-greet activity deal went on that first day.

Expectation: "Samantha, what do your mommy and daddy do?" Then I tell my innocent classmate:"My daddy drinks a lot and my mommy is dead. What about yours?"

Reality: "Samantha?" This is the teacher this time. "Samantha, please talk with your other classmates. Sa_man_tha, please be like the other children and participate."

That's right, ladies and germs, I sat in the corner and didn't say a single thing for the entire first semester. It only got worse when I stopped doing my homework. It's one thing for your teacher to put you on blast for not doing anything when you have friends to vent to. Then you can count on their sympathy, or at least empathy. When you have no friends to begin with, you're just this lonely girl in a class full of strangers, and you're getting screamed at for not doing your fifth book report in a row, and the funny bit is, you don't really care.

You don't really care because you're eleven and you still watch cartoons even though other kids are into grown-up things like kissing and cell phones and Playstation. You don't really care because you want to go home and hide in the pillow fort in your bedroom with the junk food you bought at the corner store, because nothing makes the day go smoother than three bags of Cheetos.

You don't really _care_ about anything.

This was pre-Boss-becoming-the-Boss. Pre-Boss-who-would-have-strangled-the-life-out-of-my-scrawny-windpipes. He was still 'Dad' at this point.

Moving on. One day, the teacher sent home a form asking permission to put me in an after-school program for idiots. No, really: it was for the kids that either had legitimate disorders, or those who had gang affiliations, or heck, the ones that were pregnant. Related: did you know you can get pregnant at eleven years old?

'Dad' didn't come home that night. I had to fudge the signature and lucky for me, my teacher was too fed up with my lack-of-cares-given to pay attention.

I went to the loneliest bungalow on the Indigo Middle School campus, all the way on the back of the property, past the park and so far back that you think you're trespassing into someone's home. Mr. Delone, the large uncaring PE teacher, took my form and had me sit in the back, as if that were anything new. In retrospect, he was doing me a huge favor. I got to avoid the whackjobs in the front of the room: the ones that ate glue, carved pictures into the desks and sold Hot Cheetos as a practice run for those more insidious substances in high school.

"Psst!"

And when I didn't reply, she did it again: "Psst!"

"What?" I asked, making sure to keep my voice low so Mr. Delone didn't hear us. He sat behind his laptop, looking incredibly engaged at something and moving his mouse really, really fast when a kid came by. "What is it?"

"Geez, someone's cranky," the girl beside me said. She waited for a minute. "I've seen your face."

"Really."

"I know you. From North Elementary, right? You're the girl who always brought cupcakes to the bake sales. Mom's a great chef, huh?"

"My sister," I started to say, surprised that anyone remembered those days. "She's the baking genius."

"They were _great_ stuff. Makes the crud we get from the cafeteria look like absolute garbage, you know what I'm saying? What I wouldn't give for a—"

"Lucille!" Mr. Delone bellowed. "Zip the lip."

"Yes, _sir_," she replied. The conversation kept going in the same volume. "The name's Lucille, but everyone calls me Lucy, got it?"

I nodded. "I'm Samantha." Then, quick to make a hip first impression: "B-but everyone calls me Sam."

I wasn't saying that just to seem cool. I mean, does anyone seem cool in sixth grade? I bet half of my class only knew my name thanks to the teacher scolding me routinely, so nobody called me Sam besides Hannelore.

So, when Lucy remembered and asked one day, "Sam, I'm bouncing after third period. Wanna come with?" I was more than inclined to tag along.

We spent the rest of that year—October through early December—taking our mutual disdain of school to the next level. The cashier at the liquor store knew us (and our candy bars of choice) better than our classmates. We went to homeroom every day, because if you didn't even go to _that_ then you got a call home, but everything else was up for grabs.

Funny story, that: we found out the hard way about homeroom. Lucy showed up at the usual spot—the liquor store parking lot—with a broken voice and puffy eyes. I had to ask twice what was wrong.

"It's the Chief," she said with a capital C. "Delone called him about my attendance."

I opened my bag of Cheetos and offered Lucy some. She refused, and that's how you knew it was bad.

"What did he say?" I asked.

"The Chief? Ha! I'll be sleeping in the park tonight, that's about it." I wasn't sure she was entirely joking, either.

"Whatever, Sam. It doesn't matter, let's get out of here." She started walking fast, pulling her long black hair to a pony-tail off the side of her head. It always bugged me how I dressed like a normal kid and got treated like the fat girl leper, but Lucy wasn't even ten pounds lighter than me and wore black skirts and torn-up shirts and put her hair in weird patterns and nobody batted an eye. I ran to catch up.

We walked and walked, and when we got to the light rail stop, we rode the entire line around Saffron City. On the second loop, I ran out of Cheetos and figured it was okay to talk.

"Who's the Chief?"

"Huh?" She asked sleepily.

"You said someone called the Chief won't let you go home."

"That's just my old man," she said ruefully. Lucy wouldn't even look at me. She stared out the window and clear on 'til morning. "He runs the show around the house, keeps the tribe on track, so he's the Chief."

She opened her backpack and threw a candy bar my way.

"What's your family like?"

I braced for impact. This somehow hadn't come up yet, and I liked it that way. I tried to keep it all on Hannelore, but Lucy saw straight through it.

"I mean your parents, Sam," she pushed.

"My mom is...she passed."

"Bummer," Lucy said. That was _all_ she said, for which I was more than grateful. "What about daddy-o? He in the picture any?"

"My dad," I repeated, scrambling to say something nice. "He works hard for me and Hannelore. He always comes home real late."

"Stop yankin' my chain, Sammy. Get to the goods," Lucy prodded.

"Um...He is kind of bossy," I admitted. "He's always screaming at us to do things around the house because he's tired. He likes a few drinks when he gets home, too."

"What a familiar story," Lucy sighed.

The train slowed to a crawl as we pulled into the city center. Goldenrod City was huge, for sure, but it wasn't disarmingly, frighteningly, mind-numbingly huge. Growing up in a sleepy suburban area of Kanto's own flagship city took away the surprise of urban metropolis. Saffron City pulled its own weight: in the city center, the light rail was elevated a good mile off of the ground to make way for the triple-decker highways and gazillion-story skyscrapers and malls.

Lucy stood up and stretched. She snatched her bag and threw it over her shoulder.

"I'm gonna get off here," she said. "Don't follow me, okay?"

I agreed, though I didn't know why.

She leaned against that safety-rail-pole-thing in the middle of the car. Lucy stared through me, her eyes wide and unknowing.

"I've gotta deal with the Chief sometime," she sighed.

"He's just your dad. What's the worst that could happen?"

There was a very worrisome pause.

"Sam, promise me one thing?" Lucy bounced off of the rail. The doors opened.

"I'll take care of the Chief," she said. "Just...don't let the Boss run your life, okay?"

I agreed again, still not really knowing what this was all about. So Lucy was going to get scolded, so what? We were kids, those things tended to happen to everyone. Even the good, straight-A kids probably got in trouble for something.

Lucy left through the open train car doors. I stayed on one more loop through good ole' Saffron before getting off and starting the long walk home.

The school never called my house, thank the lord. I probably wouldn't be alive today if the Boss knew how and why I failed my entire sixth grade class schedule. Having a family trauma gives you an excuse for almost anything.

When I die, the first thing I'll do is ask mom's forgiveness.

...Anyway. That was the last time I saw Lucy. I wouldn't hear that the Chief transferred her to a school for troubled children, or how she showed up that first week with bruises, until we found each other on the Internet years later. Matter of fact, we were making plans to move together, but that's another story.

The Boss went on one rage spree too many, and here I am.

…

I woke up via vibrating gadget.

Last night was a success in terms of my crawling-into-bed-and-cocooning-myself strategy. Pika continued to amaze: he knew better than to snuggle up next to me, but he still pulled a pillowcase off an unused pillow and stuffed himself in that for the night. I poked the stuffed pillowcase with a yellow tail a few times, just to make sure it was still breathing.

My phone buzzed again. Note to self: don't keep the thing in bed with you. Especially if you're planning on not getting cancer. Diet drinks are bad enough, but can you imagine how much radioactive power it takes for a gadget to talk to space?

I digress.

The phone display blasted my retinas. I couldn't make out the sender's name—Henry, of course—without squinting hardcore.

'Don't forget, Twilight tonight. Radio Tower.'

I dropped the phone, narrowly resisting the urge to throw it and never hear from that boy again.

I was very much awake now. I became aware of the sunlight pouring in from the windows, the cold just outside my comforter, and Hannelore's off-pitched rendition of Morrissey in the kitchen.

I rolled up slowly, resisting until the last minute.

"Another pleasant valley Sunday," I groaned. Pika's tail twitched, and the pillowcase rolled around. I gave it a few stabs with my finger. "You too, Pika-pal. Time to get up."

Hannelore sat at the couch, paperback novel in one hand and a mug full of tea in the other. She hadn't been up long herself, still rocking her Sinnoh Champion Cynthia nightshirt and her hair pulled up. I slouched into a chair at the table.

"Look who's up," Hannelore commented dryly.

"What time is it?"

"Just after nine." She sipped her tea. Then, curtly: "I put breakfast in the fridge for you."

I cracked a smile.

Ladies and gentlemen, you are witnessing a class-five Hannelore Tantrum of Destruction.

It was one thing to rub the Boss the wrong way, because he had no right way to begin with. When it came to Hannelore, though, I had to take my licks.

I went to the couch and sat beside her. When I didn't get a reaction I nudged her once, twice, third time's the charm.

"May I help you?" Hannelore asked curtly.

"I apologize for coming home late and being a skeezeball to your boyfriend," I said.

She went red as a beet. We both do that, just that I have thick skin and she has no skin at all. "Mr. McCall is not my boyfriend, he's my boss."

"He looked a little young to be a boss..."

"Well, he is. And I'm not mad that you were rude, because you really weren't." She put the paperback down. "I just...Let's try it this way."

This wouldn't be good.

"Put yourself in my shoes, Sam. My baby sister, whom I love to death, runs all the way here to leave home. I'm telling everyone at the Company in charge of the apartment that you're a good kid and you're going to adjust, and you've just been in a bad situation...then the second night you're here, you get home after midnight, and in front of my boss. How am I supposed to explain that?"

I had a retort or two—how about explain that I'm literally saving the world?—but bit my lip.

"I'm not mad," she went on.

"You're disappointed?"

"Nah, not even. Worried, though, definitely. You just got here, you know? Be careful. I just want you to be _careful_."

It wasn't a family moment until Pika bounced onto the coffee table with his barbecue sauce. Hannelore and I tried and failed to stay serious.

"I've got to be at work soon," she said. "Are you going out again?"

"I've got plans."

"Sounds ominous. Like what?"

I quickly organized the last few days' events into two categories: what I could say and what was top-secret. "I met some friends," I said.

She pursed her lips.

"They're nice kids," I backtracked. "I met them when I went to the Village. One of them works in the department store, he's really nice."

Cue her eyebrows going up ever so slowly.

"So you're going to meet a boy, huh?"

_GAH._ "No! Not like that. Henry is just nice, that's all. We're meeting up at the radio tower this afternoon."

"Henry and his friends are giving you a free tour?" She offered, suspicion still on the rise.

I nodded vigorously. Because I'm not an idiot, but I'm definitely _not_ a liar.

Hannelore let it go. She put the mug down and jumped to her feet. "I trust you! Just know my rule: no pregnancies in the Hutchinson House."

"Hannelore!"

"Same goes for you, Pika. And I've been to school, I _know_ how those little Dittos can be—"

"_Hannelore!_"

…

There was still so much that didn't make sense.

Right after Hannelore left, I took out a legal pad and made a physical list of things that were just strange in Henry's story. Which was funny in and of itself, to be sure.

On the left side, things that made sense from yesterday. On the right, things that made zero sense, whatsoever.

Left side: Celebi Balls being derived of GS Balls, and given to us to fight Unseen.

Right side: Why was Celebi involved at all? Where did the Unseen come from?

...Already, the right side was winning. I bit my pen.

Left side: The Twilight striking at four, and the Dome only going away if people with Pokemon satisfy a condition. Basically, if you're one of those people, you have the fate of the world in your hands.

Right side: Who decided these Mission Clears? How did Henry and his friends know about the different Twilight dates, or what the clear conditions were? Or hell, how did they know where the Domes would fall?

...This was doing _wonders_ for my anxiety, let me tell you.

Left side: Henry and his friends could fight because they were sensitive to the Twilight and able to exist inside the Dome. They used their Celebi Balls to capture Pokemon and, through the beefed-up bond in that other dimension, they fought the Unseen.

Right side: If Pokemon from that other dimension couldn't exist unless they were housed in a Celebi Ball...what was Pika's story?

What had Amber said the other day?

Pika might be some kind of a trick, a trap from the Unseen. Something that broke the rules for their benefit, whoever _they_ were.

Pika sat on the couch, nuzzling the ketchup bottle and watching the reality TV I had turned on for white noise.

I couldn't turn on Pika. He was the first friend I made here, the Pokemon I was supposed to be bonded to. In a few hours, we would be fighting for our lives, like it or not. There were many suspect things in this situation, but I couldn't afford for Pika to be one.

The phone buzzed at me.

"Hullo?"

"Sam, it's Henry."

"I realize that," I said curtly.

He continued unfazed. "The Twilight's in four hours. It'll take a while to get over there, and I was going to pick up some things at the department store first."

"Don't you work there?" I didn't mean to sound so snotty, I promise.

"I fixed the schedule so I'm off today, but dad needed me to move some things. I thought we could go to the radio tower together."

I rolled my eyes. Forgive me if I was still a little weirded-out from yesterday. Seeing Henry again wouldn't be much fun, especially since there was zero pretense of this being a friendly thing. Allow me to demonstrate.

"What do you need to pick up?"

"Conner sent me a list. We're good on Revives and Full Heals, but we're running low on Super and Hyper potions. Amber likes to go through them at a clip."

There you have it, straight from the Ponyta's mouth.

But as much as I wanted to go alone today, to have some dramatic walk down unfamiliar streets and pretend I'm the lead singer in some angsty band's music video, I couldn't. These were unfamiliar streets, like I said. Knowing me, I could get off at the Radio Tower station, take a wrong turn, and end up back in Kanto.

"I'll leave now," I said.

"Sam, wait."

"Yes?"

He paused. Then: "Are you going to be okay?"

"As fine as I'll ever be," I huffed.

"You'll be safe with us, I promise. The world's not coming to an end today." Then: "What's so funny?"

"Do you ever laugh at yourself? 'The world's not coming to an end today'. Who says stuff like that?"

Silence from the other side. I snotted one time too many. Snotted? Snat?

"I'm leaving now," I said honestly. "Meet you at the department store in thirty?"

"I'll be here," Henry promised.

…

Henry didn't run out to greet me when I arrived. Hammo didn't jump out of its ball and skitter up my leg. Henry and I didn't wander down the aisles doing cute, comical things and giggling like idiots while buying the occasional healing item, interspersed with chocolates and whatever else couples like. This was us gearing up for battle, and Henry made no mistake to identify this as anything other.

He had messaged me while I was on the train to meet at the third floor, where Trainers gathered to stock up on items before getting trounced by Whitney yet again. He already had a basket in hand.

"Isn't that a little excessive?" I asked of the forty-pack of Hyper Potions. Pika must have seen potions before, because when he saw the basket, he shuddered. The gravity of what we were in for finally hit _him_, too. "How much is that thing going to cost, anyway..?"

"I get it for free. My family owns this building, remember?" Henry answered in a distracted monotone. I moved to him quietly. It was one of those let's-be-quiet-but-we-have-no-idea-why moments.

"Don't mind me!" He snapped out of the trance. "I'm choosing between Full Restores and Max Potions. The Full Restores are harder for my dad to buy, and if I took too many, he might start to ask questions." He tacked on: "It's not your problem, though."

He handed me a list scribbled on the back of a receipt. "Grab as many of those as you can get your hands on," he said. Then it was back to the trance.

Pika bounced down to feet level, and we perused the other end of the aisle. Burn Heal, Awakening, Escape Rope and Sitrus Berry...Pika smirked when I screwed up my face.

"What's so funny?" I asked him. Though I knew the answer...This was surreal.

These were the items out of TV, out of weekend battles that the Boss would watch with his friends from work.

"I know, I know," I told Pika when his eyes bugged out. Full Heal—this massive syringe—looked painful. "It's bizarre to me too, pal."

We finished up with the item buying (technically stealing? Can Henry steal from himself?) and went back on the underground.

The Radio Tower train had been painted jet black.

Great, another hearse. What was it with Goldenrod and hearses?

The three of us—Me, Henry, and Pika—rode the rest of the way in silence, probably lost in thought. I say _probably_ because Henry laughed at something along the way.

"What's so funny?" I asked him.

"Nothing," he sighed. Then back to pensive mode.

Unlike everything else in this city, I had seen the Radio Tower on TV and online and in books before, so it didn't surprise me. Sure, the thing was _tall_, to the point that it was basically an electronic sand dial, but still.

Amber was waiting for us at the main entrance. Even without the red ribbon in her hair, she was still the poster child for 'scorned woman'. She had pursed her lips so hard, I entertained the thought that they could just shatter like glass.

"The Late Leader at Last," Amber sang. She picked up one of the two messenger bags at her feet and pressed it against me. "Put what you can fit in that. You're my support for this mission and you do what I tell you, capice?"

I went doe-eyed.

"You didn't tell her the mission," Amber accused Henry.

"She's not part of it. I told you already, she's just shadowing you—"

"So she's dead weight," Amber huffed. She gave me the once-over, then put a hand on her hip. "The Mission's easy—"

"Amber," Henry warned.

Amber rolled her eyes. "The Mission's easy. We need to get to the top floor and turn on the emergency broadcast signal. Henry and Conner are packing the heat, so all we're doing is keeping these few floors clean."

To Henry: "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Henry opened my bag and stuffed it with whatever he could grab from our department store haul. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was hurrying to get rid of me.

"One minute to Twilight, Cap'n," Amber said.

Henry zipped my bag and threw it over me, like I was some child that needed protecting. Pika enjoyed the show, watching me squirm with a sadistic grin.

"Conner and I are taking the back entrance," Henry announced. "If anything happens, you hit an emergency alarm. Conner and I will come back here, and we'll regroup."

"Sounds easy," Amber sang.

"It is. There's no fail condition here, so if we just get it done, we'll be fine."

"'If we get it done, we'll be fine'. Henry, you would make a darn fine logician, I'll tell you what."

Henry nodded to both of us, smiled at Pika, and then he was gone.

Pika waddled back and forth in a wide circle. I would have told him to stop being awkward, but I couldn't stop playing with the bag strap.

"Do yourself a favor, new girl?"

I dug my fingernails into the strap fabric.

"Just stay out of my way, okay?"

I turned away from her just enough to provoke the Amber Rage Machine. She lurched forward, deathly stare pointed.

Whatever higher power exists, he's a cruel prankster.

Saving me from one hell by starting the Twilight...which only landed me in another hell.

The people vanished first, without aplomb. Just like back in the Village: they were here, and then they were not. The sky took on a surreal green tint that I hadn't noticed the first time around. It blurred the sun's perfect circle, casting us under a blurry emerald hue. The buildings outside the Dome—only a few blocks in either direction—disappeared slowly, melting from their glistening steel tops until nothing remained from this place, here and now.

Amber snapped the ribbon off of her wrist. She tied it around her head, eyes closed and mouth yawning.

"Showtime," she sang. She started for the Radio Tower lobby.

I didn't follow immediately. All of the things that Henry had told me were finally clear. The red and blue bird Pokemon I didn't recognize that suddenly flew overhead, the people crawling out of alleys in tattered clothing not three streets away...these were sensitive people from a distant land.

I was their hero. Or...I was, like, _a_ hero. _Someone's_ hero. Something like that.

"Are you coming, new girl?" Amber held the glass door open. "Don't keep me waiting. If something wants to make you its lunch, you're on your own."

She let the door close behind me, and we were alone in a space meant for thousands of tourists. The tile floor sparkled, the overhead lights hummed innocently. There _had_ been thousands of tourists here before. At exactly 3:59:59, to be precise.

"Stay there," Amber directed. "You see any Unseen...Ha!"

Her laugh was a serrated-edged stab to the ear drum.

"Let me try that again. Any Unseen come up, you open that fat gob and scream, got it?"

I nodded.

"I can't hear you!"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, what?"

"You can't be serious."

Amber cupped her ear. "Yeah, _what_?" Then: "Come _on_, Samantha. Your ego or your life?"

If ever my voice box wanted to revolt, it was now. "Yes, ma'am," I drawled.

"_Ha! _I can't believe you did it! _God_, what a wuss...yeah, stand there. You can handle that."

Amber marched off to the reception desk and crawled over it, without missing a beat. She felt along the underside of the wood counter, paused, and with a sly grin, hit it _hard _with her knee. With the skirt and leggings, Amber was one of those girls in the magazines, come to life. Exuding confidence, dripping with purpose.

"And..._that_ one!"

She flipped a switch, one of those fat ones that makes a 'click' you can hear for miles.

"Let's not all ask at once," she glared.

"What did that do?"

"That took out the lights for the upper floors." Amber crawled back over the desk. When she landed, her Celebi Ball was turning in her palm. "Without the light, there won't be shadows. And without shadows, no Unseen. Conner and leader boy get a clear shot to the roof.

"That said...I'd get your Pika-dude away from the door."

I whipped around fast, but not fast enough.

"Pika, move!"

Credit to Pika's agility; a slower Pokemon would have been mince-meat.

Pika jumped from the door, not even turning around to see the attacker, as the front doors exploded into cascading glass. Pika's tail glided along the floor, tracing a path for him to land square by my feet, cheeks lit up and ready.

"You'll figure this one out," Amber said. "Unseen are menacing, for sure, but they're not bright."

The mass of black flesh pressed against the widened entrance, pushing itself against the steel frames and squeezing in through the window frames. All it did was cut itself up badly, with pools of black liquid dripping like molasses.

Amber bent back and laughed. "You won't fit through there, genius!"

"Amber?"

"He saw the Tower and figured he'd have to get that big. They do it all the time...like that other Twilight, where they split up to kill different people? Like you need two Unseen for two sickly humans...Really, where do they get off—"

"Amber!"

"_What ? _Can't you hear? I'm trying to gloat—Oh, hey," was all Amber said.

The blood pools expanded with a slow, calculated momentum. Once they expanded from no smaller than my fist to the size of Hannelore's table, the puddles sprouted, ones now very familiar in my nightmares. They crawled along the tile, powerful hands seeping into and finally breaking the individual tiles and revealing concrete below.

Once they were firmly behind their battle lines, the four or five puddles of Unseen, they began to grow.

"Listen to me, new girl—"

"Sam," I corrected. "My name. It's Sam."

Amber bobbed her head slightly. "Fine, new girl. Keep your Pikachu—"

"Pika," I clarified.

"_Fine,_ new girl! Don't do anything stupid."

"I wasn't planning on it," I spat.

Amber held her Celebi Ball out, arm extended, the way Henry had in the Village. One arm back, knees bent and pulsing.

"Keep them off me," Amber said.

* * *

Thanks for reading, thanks double for reviewing.


	6. Escape rope

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

- "Escape Rope."

Amber tossed her Celebi Ball, backhanded, into the fray. It burst open to summon Liligant, a human-looking grass Pokemon with leaves for a dress, blouse, and a bonnet-looking thing on its head. It came up to my waist, and would have been _very_ cute if not for the fully-formed Unseen it was staring down.

I remembered what Henry told me about the bond, how it turned Pokemon and Trainers into literal partners in arms. Liligant held Amber's pose, bunched up its eyebrows the same way, and both were ready.

Three Unseen moved to it, prepared for battle but knowing they had the odds—

Amber shouted at me—

"Watch yourself!"

An ear-splitting _crash_ and Pika was already flying through the air, weaving away from an attack but without any of his usual finesse. Four pairs of arms raced for him, their bodies unmoving and their jaws still clamped. They had to beat the opposition, and _then _they could break for lunch.

—I remembered, attack!

"Pika! Thundershock those arms, hurry!"

Pika did me one better: he zapped the first two arms as they came within strike proximity, and ran along one of their stunned forearms to jump again, this time with acrobatics, and zap an Unseen point-blank. I was ready for the painful scream this time. Lucky I never left home without the headphones around my neck; I pulled them up and let the music, _any_ music, ring clear.

Pika steadied himself as the Unseen buckled from its wound. Amber was _so_ right about the Unseen being idiots: arms came up to smash Pika while it was on their buddy's head.

"Jump! Now!"

Pika was out of bounds long before the arms collided with burnt Unseen skull. The sickening crunch of hell-demon-bones had my stomach churning, but funnily enough, you don't notice that much when you're in a battle. Who knew?

The Unseen squirmed under its own charred wounds, and Pika saw his opening. His cheeks went from their familiar crimson to a deep-red, deeper than Hannelore's cheeks on Valentines' Day. The electric wave pummeled Pika's opponent and down he went, melting back into the shadows.

"We got him," I said, disbelieving. Then, yelling and fist-pumping: "We got him!"

"Great, kid," Amber responded. "Don't get cocky."

I wondered: why wouldn't she let me have this minor victory in the sad story of my social life?

Then I saw: it was because Amber and Lilligant were dueling three Unseen at once, and let me tell you, that's not a pretty picture.

Lilligant—Lili, I remembered Amber shouting the nickname—moved like a painting come to life. The leaves of her graceful skirt avoided each lunge and strike of Unseen arms effortlessly. She weaved past three strikes, raced to a slide underneath the gargantuan body of its nearest attacker, and—

"Lili, Petal Dance!"

Lili pulled her arms over her head and held for a brief moment. She released the stance a moment later, bringing her arms down and unleashing a flurry of razor-sharp leaves. The Unseen roared in agony as Lili moved out of the way, and down it went, back into the abyss.

Two left. And Lili was sandwiched between them.

I turned to Pika. As always, the little guy was one step ahead of me.

"Don't you dare!"

Amber's strained voice hit me like ice water.

"We've got this," she said. "Don't get in the way, intern!"

God has comedic timing. On perfect cue, Liligant failed to dodge just one attack, and that was all the Unseen needed. Lili had leapt to avoid one strike and looked for an opening, but the beast behind her took its chance and brought her down with one swipe. Lili careened into the tile, and the squishing sound of her body hitting the ground churned my insides.

Amber went down to her knees. If _I_ had felt that, I probably would have woken up in a hospital.

She took exactly three powerful heaves for air, and then it was back to work. "Magical Leaf!"

Amber could barely stand, and Lili was no better. She staggered back to her feet and dodged a follow-up swipe through sheer luck. She took to a run, strafing around the two Unseen and looking for an angle, but she was slow. If she stopped to attack, it might mean the blow that broke the camel's back.

Now.

Let it be said that Amber and I were not exactly what you'd call simpatico, but that's no reason for her to take an Unseen arm to the chest.

Sure, you could read into what I did as some pathetic plea for friends...But why would you do that?

"Pika, Volt Tackle!" Then: "...If you know that, please?"

Pika shot off like an eager rocket, waiting for me to give the signal. He ran for the backside of the nearest Unseen, the one that had hit Lili the first time, and charged his cheeks. He bounced once, twice, and up he went.

Amber screamed at me like I stole something. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing, new girl?!"

Pika slammed into the unsuspecting Unseen and sent the demon's body convulsing violently, limbs flinging out, jaw open and voice screaming. Lili took her chance: a wave of the arm and purple leaves materialized out of nothing. They raced for the Unseen's open jaw and set to work slicing and dicing its mouth like fine cuisine. Pika finally landed and stood beside Lili, both of them proud as the second Unseen of the evening went down.

"Wrecked!" I cheered. "These guys aren't that difficult once you get to—"

"Will you _shut up?!_" Amber shouted. "If you're going to get in my way, at least follow my lead. Cover Lili, is that clear?"

"Got it," I said. Arguing could wait.

"Good. Lili," Amber turned back to the arena. "Behind you—Frenzy Plant!"

The final Unseen never saw it coming.

Lili pressed its arms to the earth, and not a second later, trees—full blown trees!—ripped up the ground under us and cut clear through its body. The trees grew up to the ceiling and the Unseen was ensnared in the branches, fighting to escape as the trees continued to grow, more and more branched skewering it relentlessly. He didn't stand a chance, poor evil fellow. The Unseen's body bled down to the earth and disappeared, done.

Pika and Lili stood victorious.

"We did it!"

When Amber didn't share my enthusiasm: "Didn't we?"

She shook her head. "Hardly. Henry didn't tell you _anything_ about this Mission Clear fiasco, did he?"

"No..?"

"It's a survival condition. I don't suppose I need to explain that to you too, huh?" She stumbled for me and spun me around. "We've got about fifteen seconds before the next wave...Hyper Potion? Henry stole the good stuff this time. Lili, to me!"

"Hold on," I said, trying and failing to hide the desperation. "What do you mean, 'next wave'?"

Amber zipped me up and pushed me aside. She sprayed the Hyper Potion on Lili's arms and legs and like magic, she was back in fighting shape, hopping about and pumping her leafy guns. Amber herself looked better. The red in her face went down, and when she stood back up, the limp was gone.

"Here they come," she said eagerly. True to form, Unseen shadows were coming in around us.

"I count four," she said. "This time, we play my way."

You know, as if Pika and I hadn't saved her behind.

"Lili takes the lead, you cover her back, end of story. If you get in my way, you'll regret it."

We were on the same side. You'd think that would occur to her but _no_, Amber glared at me as though I were her Public Enemy No. 1.

For some funny reason, that didn't feel far from the truth.

The two Unseen in front of us grew to their horrible height, their teeth smiling devil smiles at us and our Pokemon allies. I only had to feel the crawl up my spine and the breath on my back to know the Unseen behind us were ready to tango as well.

Funnily enough, I felt competent having a dance partner now.

Amber was already babbling orders that I wouldn't have listened to if you paid me. Her and Lili's bond showed through in how Lili held perfectly still, taking the moves in and processing them one at a time. Eyes closed, petal skirt running along the floor, fear in control and the situation her own.

Pika and I didn't work that way, what with not having a formal bond and all, but we got the job done. He took a quick glance behind me and I nodded.

Pika did a full turn and ran my way. I fell to my knees and he was in the air, soaring over me and coating his body in electric force. Whether or not he made contact, I didn't see. Amber tackled me to the ground and before I could ask why, two sets of jaws rushed and snapped at where we had just been. Strands of hair caught in their stinking teeth.

Amber rolled gracefully and took up her stance. If I said I were nearly that cool...could you guys do me a solid and take my word on it?

Before my eyes, a showdown played out in high speed. Lili's were the arms of a majestic conductor, with each wave of her leafy limbs forming a tornado of pink and purple foliage that sliced and diced Unseen flesh into demon sushi. Lili stood in one spot, rotating to focus on the different bodies as necessary, and Pika had her covered. Pika landed from his flying Volt Tackle technique and, while the target Unseen recoiled from the hit, ran to Lili's side. One jaw opened and hungered for Lili, only to be snapped shut as Pika electrified his tail and whipped it in an uppercut, slamming the Unseen's mouth upward and its teeth into its tongue. That would hurt in the morning, for sure.

Pika was a blur of yellow and blue, switching targets and tackling limbs as he felt appropriate, only stopping to focus his cheeks and shock an opponent from where he stood.

"Scumbags," Amber boasted. "Even _they_ know when they're outclassed, new girl."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing much," Amber said. "Lili, one more time—Frenzy Plant!"

...Neither Amber nor Lili saw it coming. Pika kept his attention on the fight like I should have, good guy that he was. I only saw it because Amber's comment deserved a side stare...

Conner lay in the road outside the tower, covered in gashes and struggling for breath. I saw past the rim of his glasses and into the stare that meant one thing: _watch out._

"Pika! Volt Tackle Lili, now!"

You can imagine the profanities Amber shouted at me.

Pika paused, understandably, but did as he was told. Lili went flying by the force of Pika's strike, and Amber went down from a blow straight to the gut. I grabbed her shoulders and hunkered the two of us down, with nothing but the clothes on our backs to save us—

Staravia's banshee cry knocked the Unseen sideways. Tile and gravel went up in one debris stew as they fell, and then Staravia crashed into the doors and added glass to the concoction. Glass nicked me in the chubby cheeks, sliced through the arms of my sweater, cut up the paint on my headphones. Amber swore loudly.

Whatever pain we felt then, Staravia was in a whole 'nother world of hurt. He fought to stay on his feet but the massive bird fell again and again, his wings opening and closing and spraying the room in blood. His powerful thighs quivered with each attempt to stabilize. When he finally went down, the only sound left the heavy heaving of his lungs, even the Unseen were reluctant to continue the fight.

"Sam, _do_ something!"

Henry!

"Hammo, Flamethrower!"

Amber pushed me off—a little more strongly than necessary—and turned back to the fight. She went back to commanding Lili, and Pika needed directions.

My gaze went to the outside again, and I saw Henry at Conner's side, holding his friend's hand while focusing on the battle. On the battlefield, Hammo darted around with Pika following his lead, and Lili at their center, back to throwing magical leaves at her whim. The final Unseen collapsed at their combined might, and to be honest, when Hammo breathed fire—seriously, _fire—_on its body, Lili cut it open with magical leaves and Pika Volt Tackle'd into him, I felt kind of bad.

But only kind of.

Amber didn't dare move from her spot, her eyes always scanning. I took several breaths—one for your mother and one for your father, one for sisters and brothers—and raised a hopeful fist.

"Mission Clear?"

Nobody was celebrating, though.

…

The Dome dropped, that wasn't a problem. The Clear Condition—another set of capital letters—had been for one of us to reach the top of the tower. Henry and Conner, riding on Staravia, succeeded in the first minute or so of the battle.

"The complications ensued when we realized, the directions were parsed out cloudy at best." Conner reached for the middle of the table and held the Parmesan cheese shaker daintily, in his fingertips. Before you get the wrong idea, it wasn't their tradition to get pizza after every battle. Henry healed up Staravia before the Dome went down, so Conner was healed thanks to the bond, and he was hungry. Amber knew a place, and here we were. Serendipitous. "When we reached the tower apex, another survival trial awaited us."

Wouldn't it have been easier to say—

"We were ambushed," Henry answered my idea. "The Unseen are dumb in a fight, but they knew to take out Staravia and leave us stranded."

Amber was paying attention, you could tell from how she nodded like a bobble head, but her focus was on taking another slice of pepperoni goodness from the table center. Ten bucks said she was one of those girls that ate a ton but gained, like, negative weight.

Pika sat on my lap enjoying the root beer I paid good money for.

"You two are quiet," Henry smiled. "How did your internship go, Sam?"

"Next time you hire an intern, make sure she knows how to listen."

"Hey!" I felt my voice raise, and instinctively drew it back. Yelling in a pizza parlor in downtown Goldenrod just wasn't me.

"Henry, your new girl scout had one job: back me up. She did everything but; you should have seen it. We're fighting two of them in front of us, and she tells her mangey Pikachu to literally jump behind us.

"Oh, and I forgot the part where she told it to attack Lili."

Silence at the dinner table.

"It's the truth," Amber added with a shrug to impress Atlas. (If you don't get that reference, kids, do your homework!) "Not my fault I believe in team playing.

"By the way," she pointed to the remaining half of the pizza. "Were you gonna finish that?"

I was done. I stood up and took my bag of stolen potions with me.

"Sam, wait," Henry tried and failed. I was out the door.

Sorry, Ray's Pizza no. 400—I added that last bit—but today, I just wasn't feeling you.

Thanks to the Twilight, it was only a quarter to five in the afternoon. The sun was barely going down. I had plenty of time to march around town in an enraged huff. Let Amber say what she wants about me. Why do I _care_ what she says? So _what_ if she's a sociopathic liar?

So _what_ if she's exactly like the girls I wouldn't make friends with, because after knowing Lucys exist, you believe you can do better?

So _what_ if Henry probably took her side, since he had every reason to?

And _so bloody what_ if me storming out is the stupidest, most annoying, most _girl_ thing I could do? It's Samantha Hutchinson doing something bold for once. It's the year of bold moves. I ran from home, and now I'm running from the first group to ever invite me to post-world-saving-pizza.

I remembered, I forgot to chip in for the tab. They could bill me.

"Samantha?"

I pulled the headphones back over my ears. Even Pika knew better to bug me: he opted to walk rather than ride on my shoulders. You'd think Henry would know when to let a steaming girl steam.

He stopped behind me. Henry was a sweetheart—yes, I called him that in my private thoughts—but he was insane to think I'd turn around.

"Samantha," he repeated.

He put a hand on my shoulder, and _then _I was mad.

"Henry, I appreciate that you chased me out here but I'm _really _not in the mood for you to be so nice to me because you're so_ nice_ to me all the time and I just messed that up because Amber lied to you about what happened and I just can't _stand_ girls like her so please just—"

Pause for comedic effect.

"Wow," Conner said. "I never knew girls turned that red in real life."

I think even Pika put his head in his little yellow hands. Paws?

"I thought we could walk home together," he offered. "You're one stop before me on the A train."

Then: "If you want, you can tell me what actually transpired in combat, not that harlot Amber's interpretation."

I giggled one of those I'm-about-to-cry giggles. How much had I told Conner? What had I babbled? I couldn't have reproduced it on paper without being under particularly-heinous torture methods.

Conner pushed his glasses further up. "Where were you walking?"

"To the...train...station?" I offered.

"The station is back that way," he pointed. "I imagine you're new to Goldenrod, then?"

What was safe to tell Conner?

...What made something safe to tell Conner but not Henry?

"I am," I admitted. "Just moved here a few days ago, actually."

"Fascinating," Conner said.

…

Whatever worries I had about going home with Conner—walking with a boy, walking with a boy that wasn't Henry, walking with a boy that wasn't Henry in a still-unfamiliar place—vanished at the train platform.

When you read that, you think Hey, Conner must be a swell guy! He probably chatted Sam up and got her out of her post-Amber funk, they had a few laughs, and Henry got so jealous people thought he was wearing green face paint.

There are a few problems, there. For one thing, Henry wouldn't get jealous because he doesn't like me. He's just a boy who's nice to me because he has to be. He's _got_ to have girls that like him in school, so really, I'm just this stop-gap-filler-chub-stuf of a girl that passed by. Anyway.

The other reason has a lot less to do with my heinous self-image: I was willing to bet my headphones that Conner wouldn't even touch me.

How did I know?

Conner didn't say a word my way. The silence went from awkward as we went down the stairs to the train station, turned mildly amicable as we scanned our passes and went to the platform, and went back to pained awkwardness when it turned out to be just us, alone in a dark underground tunnel.

Conner removed his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt.

I can't complain about it being awkward if I don't try to fix it first, right?

"How's Staravia?"

Conner raised an eyebrow. His eyes were more pointed without the glasses to magnify and round them out.

"He got hurt..."

"My companion was injured, yes, but healed as well. Were he still harmed, his state would be visible in my own wounds.

Pika banged his head on my calf. I scooped him up and let him back to his perch.

"You haven't activated your bond yet, have you?" Conner nodded to Pika.

I shook my head.

"Why not?" He placed the frames back on his angled face. "You understand that until you do, you are a liability in combat."

It spilled from my lips: "And here I thought you were going to comfort me."

I went bright red, and both Pika and Conner noticed. Pika put a paw on my face, felt the heat for a moment, then snuggled up on me. Was I his Trainer, his roommate, or his space heater?

"You don't have to be embarrassed," Conner offered.

I was about to say something lame and defensive, but: "I find that if we keep feelings bottled inside, they eat us. Perhaps that's what the Unseen are: human society is repressive to anything beyond the status quo, and this is our punishment for bottling our desires."

Was I supposed to say something?

Either Conner was a mind reader, or I was just very, very easy to read. "Have you not wondered where the Unseen come from?"

I shook my head again. "Someplace where they're hungry all the time?"

"They don't eat us for hunger, they eat as an attack mechanism."

Cue the world's definition for 'condescending death glare.'

Shut _down_.

The train pulled up, right in the middle of rush hour. We crammed into the stuffed car and, for a while, I could pretend I was back in Saffron and riding the light rail with Lucy instead of here with poindexter. I pulled the headphones back around my ears and only regretted it when, as we pulled past my stop, I realized I missed the chance to head home.

Would that have been rude?

We watched the blackness of the outside tunnel pass by in silence. When the next stop—his, by the Village—finally came up, it was one of those stops where only you're getting off, and so you have to fight through a literal sea of human bodies. My headphones wrapped around a man's briefcase and threatened to pull either my neck or his hand off of their respective posts. He did me a favor and rolled his eyes at the idiot girl on the train. I didn't think I could stand any more attacks.

'Attacks'.

Was I really being _attacked_? I mean, sure, I'll admit I have a bit of a victim complex, but—

"Escape rope?"

"What?" I asked Conner. We were out of the station and walking the few long suburban blocks to his home.

"Escape rope. You were stuck in your head, damned to your own heinous thoughts. I thought I might offer a way out."

"Oh," I said. That was nice of him. No foolin'.

The follow-up question didn't come. Neither did the follow-up about the follow-up not coming. Conner's rhythm was so not Henry-like, it was almost like a parody of a Henry conversation. It even threw Pika off: he scratched my ear, waiting eagerly for the cheery back-and-forth.

"That's…it?" I prodded.

"What's it?"

"I dunno, no probing questions into my psyche? You're not gonna pull out something hidden in my backstory and—"

"Henry is a buffoon," Conner said shortly. "When I require an escape rope from my thoughts, I like to pause and reflect on _why_ I needed it. I respect if others need that same silence."

"Are you always on?" I asked with a smile.

We crossed the quiet street and finally arrived at Conner's home. Like last time, the overall dead-ness of the lawn and the paint jobs of the neighboring homes struck a chord. The Village blossomed with life and color, and even Hannelore's apartment complex had character, in that I-inhale-smoke-at-least-twice-every-time-I-want-to-interact-with-the-outside-world kind of way. Conner's neighborhood, or at least his corner of it, was where that jubilance came to die. And I almost felt that was too harsh until I remembered how you had to enter his room: through the weird staircase on the side of the house.

"Conner?" Then: "Can I ask a question?"

"You may."

I ignored that grammar barb. "Mind if I ask why your door is on the side of your house?" I backtracked: "You don't have to tell me if you don't—"

"My parents requested it of me, as a matter of fact," Conner said in his monotone. We descended the staircase and stopped at the steel door. Conner began fishing his pockets for the keys.

"Really? Your _parents_ did?"

"They gave me an ultimatum. Either I become more a part of their dynamic and exit my room more than necessary, or I don't come out at all. I chose the answer they were not prepared for, and they acted as they saw fit."

"What, so they never wanted to see you if you didn't do what they wanted? And like, be social?"

Conner put the key in the lock, but held for a moment.

"You're kidding, right?" I knew it was impolite to push the subject, but this was surreal. "You said you wanted to be alone, and your folks just built you another door?"

He adjusted his glasses again, this time for no reason than to fill a pause.

He took in a stoic breath.

"Samantha," he started. "There are people in this world who believe that when we make our decisions, they have no choice but to become reactionary forces, to strike back against an attack with a kneejerk counter. Backing down is never an option, even if means cutting off one's nose to spite his face. I disagree with that philosophy, and here we are."

I didn't pretend to understand what that was about.

He went inside first, then held the door open for me to follow. I strode casually into a boy's pitch-black bedroom where parents never cared to enter. When you put it that way, it sounds a lot dumber than it felt, I swear. The door slammed behind me with a megaton boom of metal, and Pika started. He bounced to the ground and wiggled his ear. The other one, the cut one, had still never moved.

He was definitely getting a rounder figure from the ketchup, though. I smiled.

A series of fans whirred to life in the center of the room. I met the super-computer for the second time. Conner didn't sit at them this time; he merely switched his computer on out of habit, the way anyone would. The way I did before the Boss sold my laptop, claiming it was a distraction.

"Now, for my master work," Conner began. He was by his bookshelves in the far corner now, rummaging through the looseleaf pages on the floor. I spied graded tests and assignments. So Conner did go to school, like normal kids. "I must swear you to secrecy."

"I swear—"

"This is not a game."

And believe me, his ferocity could have made babies cry.

He pulled the intensity back and continued. "Until I can conclude the origin of the Unseen and their purpose in this world, anything pertaining to our actions is classified."

"I figured as much," I said blithely.

"This is more secret still. Amber and Henry cannot know. Not yet," he amended.

I raised a hand. "Hold on. You're trusting me with something crazy-secret over the other two musketeers? I haven't been here for a week. Pika and I aren't even—"

"You haven't bonded, and that is precisely why you are the woman for this job."

He called me a woman. Huh.

Conner pulled a stack of textbooks from the shelf.

"Question," I said slowly. "Why did you gut those books?"

"So I could keep this from the wrong eyes," Conner said. He held a small, locked metal box the size of my hand. Black and shining ominously underneath Conner's unnatural light, it held my gaze and repelled Pika's. The poor guy slid behind my leg and didn't come back.

Conner slid another key from his pocket into the lock. "I keep this key with me at all times," he explained. "It's far too important."

"What's in there?" Then, not so jokingly: "Don't tell me it's like, a warhead or something."

"Close. Henry tells me you've recently seen one yourself."

The box opened with an anticlimactic click.

Reveal: familiar colors swirling in a red orb.

"A Celebi Ball," I said unsurprisingly.

"You're unimpressed."

"I know I should be. I've just seen some weird stuff recently," I said smugly.

Conner did me the favor of ignoring the barb. "It is no ordinary Celebi Ball. Look closer."

He held the box close to his chest, so I had to do this awkward not-quite-bent-over motion to get a good look. It was worth it: this definitely _wasn't_ like the Celebi Ball I had away stashed in my room. The colors didn't swirl so much as run around, like the whole thing had been shaken up and given too much caffeine. The ball didn't shimmer, but instead take in the light around it, like a pit in Conner's hands.

I squinted my eyes.

"Is it…moving?"

Conner snapped the box shut, nearly catching my nose, and hastily crammed it back in its place.

"It's far from the real thing, but it's also leagues above anything those saps at the Pokemon League have created," he gloated. "The GS Ball pales in comparison to the superior catch rate and lock capacity of a Celebi Ball. My work is still more to the former than the latter…but that can be fixed."

…Do you ever kick yourself, because you should have seen something coming from a mile away, but as soon as you see it, that thing is right in front of your face and you're boned?

Yeah, I was boned.

"Samantha, can you bring me the Celebi Ball you aren't using at present?"

Every bone in my body screamed 'no'.

But the funny bit was, I couldn't think of _why_ it was such a bad idea.

Sure, this entire situation was a terrible idea, and this whole 'Unseen versus Three Musketeers plus Sam' deal was asinine, but I could at least explain my qualms if somebody asked.

Why _couldn't_ I let him borrow my Celebi Ball? Because if I'm allowed to be honest with myself, I wasn't planning on using it anytime soon.

I might as well be careful with this, I thought. "What do you need it for?"

"Once a Celebi Ball houses a Pokemon, the internal ecosystem adapts to the home dimension of the inhabitant," Conner explained. "Our Pokemon all hail from that other world, as you know. If I were to create a Celebi Ball using mine as a base, then it could only capture Pokemon from that world."

"Isn't that…what they're used for?"

"What they're used for, yes," Conner said slyly. "Is that their full potential…I doubt it."

I love it. Just when I thought my Goldenrod City Misadventures couldn't possibly get more misadventure-y, one of my new friends turns out to be a mad scientist.

"What's wrong?" Conner asked when I threw my hands in the air.

"My life," I said joking-but-not-really-jokingly. Then, in all seriousness: "Bring you my Celebi Ball. And don't tell Henry."

"Or Amber," he added.

"I don't think that'll be a problem. Amber hates me."

"Amber is…abrasive," Conner mused. He did that mad scientist thing where he put his thumb and index finger together and under his chin. "But you are right for refusing me. This is an obscure request.

"How about this: bring me the Celebi Ball tomorrow, and I will tell you how we know the dates of the attacks and their respective Mission Clears. I imagine this is a fair trade. Information for information," he concluded. I felt like I was being lectured to.

I wanted to go along with this idea, I really did. Conner could tell. I just had to make sure this wouldn't go south.

"Here, tomorrow, say…noon."

"Noon is fine," he said.

"You'll tell me about…whatever it is you just said, and I let you see my Celebi Ball."

"That is our arrangement, yes."

"But I get the ball back when I leave. It doesn't stay with you."

"I never intended for it to," Conner agreed.

I felt Pika come out from my leg, run along my side, and hang back at his usual spot. If Pika was relaxing, then maybe it was safe for me to, also.

Or maybe I was trusting one boy I barely knew, going on the instinct of a freeloading moocher whom I occasionally team up with to fight aliens.

Tomato, tom-ah-to.

"It's a deal," I said, forcing bravado into my voice. I held out my hand, and Conner shook it vigorously. His vicegrip could slice bread.

"I look forward to it." Conner grinned.

If I said I got cold feet right then, would you believe me?

Conner offered to walk me home, and only after fighting off a dozen offers did I finally make it out of his lair. The sun had already went down and winter fog decided to rear his ugly head. Conner's home was as close to the Village station underground as it was to Hannelore's apartment, so I chose to stick it out and walk home in the frost. It wasn't fair for Pika to have to pay for my decisions—something I realized was a good proverb to Pokemon Train by—and picked him up off my shoulder.

"If you shock me, I'll cut your tail off and sell it to Team Rocket," I said.

I counted to three, then shoved Pika down my sweater. He struggled a bit, but once he got the message that my scratchy bra and chubbed-out gut were warmer than the alternative, he calmed down.

"I bet if anyone sees us, they'll think I'm some fat man with two heads," I laughed. Then my lips went from chafed to fifteen percent icicle, and I didn't say another word until I was telling Hannelore goodnight and crawling under the covers.

* * *

Thanks out there for reading and reviewing , as always. It's a blast writing this story, and I hope it's fun for you guys out there, too.


	7. Anywhere is good to me

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

- "Anywhere is good to me."

"How was spending time with your friends yesterday?" Hannelore asked. She had her hair pulled back, her pajamas on and covered by her apron, and was whisking something in a large red bowl.

I had woken up, attacked the bathroom, then crawled to the living room and flopped into a chair at the table. I felt a routine in the making.

Hannelore spun around and dropped a bowl of donut holes in front of me.

"And don't try and pretend like you don't like my donut holes," Hannelore beamed. "The last time I made them, you told ate them all and told dad you forgot to refrigerate them."

"That was pleasant," I groaned.

"Just like donut holes are meant to be." In other words, she wasn't in the mood for my quippy sarcasm. "So, come on. Dish out: what did you do last night?"

I rolled my eyes up to meet her gaze. She put her hands on her hips, and with her hair tied up, apron in place, and spatula in her left hand dripping goop onto the floor, Hannelore was positively mom-ly.

"That's a rule now," Hannelore added thoughtfully. "I'll tell you what I did with my day, and you tell me what you did with yours." Then: "I know we don't spend much time together, is all, and I don't want you to think I'm forgetting you. I'm just super busy. _Super_ busy."

I nodded. "Sounds like a fair trade. You'll tell me about your boss-boyfriend and I'll tell you about my not-boyfriend." And when she went so red you'd think she were advertising communism: "You look kind of hot, Hanna Banana. Need some burn heal? I have a ton." Which was actually the truth.

The conversation could have gone several different ways, for sure. They all flashed before my eyes: she could call me a hussy for somehow having boys to talk to this quickly after moving, she could take offense at my insinuations, or she could take the donut holes away. All three were nothing short of menacing.

Hannelore took the third option (fourth option?), breathing deeply and putting the spatula in the sink. She turned a timer on the counter for five minutes, then sat across from me.

"That's something I wanted to talk with you about, Sam. When you had the time, I mean."

I sat up straight.

Hannelore craned her head and stared off into space, then started humming. "What's the right way to start," she mused. I'm telling you, there's got to be some reason why she's criminally single, and it's got nothing to do with her.

"Sam, we're sisters," she finally began. "We might not be the same people, and we probably have very different ideas of what's good and bad."

"I doubt that," I said while grabbing four donut holes and cramming two in my mouth, "but go on."

"No, I'm serious!" Her voice tightened. "I kind of liked going out and partying when I first got here. The Company has this whole culture of getting crazy-drunk after work, something about being a family or whatever." She added a flippant hand wave. "I used to be into it, but after a while, I wanted to unwind on my own. You, Sam…You've got your group of friends now, but I seriously doubt you're doing anything ridiculous."

"Seriously," I agreed.

"But…We did grow up together. You're _still_ growing up, and we both know I'm not nearly as grown-up as I'd like to admit. We came from the same place…"

"This is about the Boss, isn't it?"

Hannelore's porcelain face scrunched up, like she smelled something awful. "I was trying to be more tactful than that, but yes. I never felt like I could call where we lived _home_. Sure, I had my things there and I slept there, but…To me, home is a place where I'm always safe. Where I never have to be afraid of being screamed at, of being fought with, and definitely of being thrown out. This is my home, and…Hm," Hannelore stopped and pursed her lips. "Tell you a secret? It's the first home I've really had since Mom."

She started fidgeting with her hands, the same way I do. "I bet that sounded anything but mature, huh? All the way across the globe and still blaming my problems on my parents…"

"No." I put my hands on Hannelore's. I stopped them fidgeting, and I stopped Hannelore from looking down on them and herself. "Don't do that."

"Don't do…what?" Honest Hannelore strikes again. The confusion on her face belonged on an abandoned puppy.

"Don't…don't pretend that everything is okay because we're just away," I said.

Now, I knew I needed to shut up.

I knew when I took Hannelore's hands without thinking that she'd look to me for something smart to say. Lord knows I don't have much of those between my ears.

But if I've done anything besides fight alien things in these last few days, it's dwell on my past. I wasn't about to let Hannelore fall into my sadsack vortex.

So, instead of doing the smart thing and shutting up, I went for broke—

Hannelore went first.

"We're getting off topic," she said. "What I wanted to say was…This is your home, too. It's your home, _period_. Nothing you can do—absolutely nothing—will make this place any less sacred to you. I want to get used to you being here, and if you're avoiding being home and acting like you're just living with me instead of really living _with_ me…"

She didn't finish that, and I didn't need her to.

She thought I wasn't coming home because I didn't feel welcome.

_God_, Hannelore.

"That's not true," I said. "I haven't been around because I've been busy."

"Busy with your new friends, I remember," she said.

If anybody else on the planet had said that, it would have been an accusation. When that anybody was Hannelore, you feel like you've been punched right in the metaphysical heart.

She sprung into action. "But don't think that I don't want you having fun, Sam! Absolutely not…is the opposite of what I want to say…I…Hm."

I smiled. "You're happy that I'm adjusting."

"Stop being the adult here, that's my job," Hannelore jabbed. I was still holding her hands across the table; she squeezed my fingertips before pulling her hands away. "So…are we okay?"

"When were we not okay?" I joked. When I saw it didn't take: "Yes, Hannelore. We're good. Honest."

That was the golden ticket. She went back on her feet, turned around, slammed the timer to zero and got back to cooking. Another Hannelore tidbit: she is still a human and, like most other humans, she has a mushiness threshold.

"Well, that's really all I did yesterday, besides lame filing stuff," Hannelore explained. "Order sheets and whatnot."

"That and writing the Hutchinson House Manifesto," I added.

"May it live in infamy." Then: "Your turn! Who is he?"

Remember how I said she and I both fidget with our fingers and go redder than the sun?

"You look a little uncomfortable," Hannelore pointed. "Did you need some burn heal?"

As much as I would have loved to spend the entire day with Hannelore, it just wasn't in the cards. I already promised Conner that I'd stop by his home again, and while the brave, independent woman side of me would be fine with breaking a promise, the spineless sensitive girl part generally controlled my actions one-hundred percent of the time.

Samantha A had no problem with making up some bogus excuse, messaging Henry just to get his attention, and then hanging out with Hannelore, making cookies and cakes and decorating Bath Room and whatever else Hannelore does.

Samantha B wouldn't bother trying to call Conner and cancel because her on-the-spot lies are worse than the average reality television show in general acting quality. She wouldn't message Henry because of…I don't know, and Hannelore didn't want to spend all day with her baby sister anyway.

"You're working from home?" I accused from the underground station. I needed some of that nuclear Hannelore confidence to go through with today. I had my Celebi Ball tucked in my bag, Pika riding shoulder-side, headphones armed, and absolutely _zero_ energy. I hoped a Hannelore on Vacation would have energy to spare. "How is working from home supposed to be a vacation?"

"I never said it was a vacation, I said it's a day off."

"Huh. Remind me, does your job make creepy top-secret gadgets, or do they make convenient wordy lies like that one?"

"Cut it out," Hannelore chided. "I'm busy. They want me to sequence some bogus DNA of this weird almost-Pokemon-like thing. I think it's for a new kind of Everstone…Oh, right, _you_ called _me_!" Then: "What's up with it?"

What Samantha A would have said: "Need a favor, Hanna-B. Come get me, hide me from the world, and if something called an Unseen starts eating people, pretend this conversation never happened."

What Samantha B—aka Me—actually said: "Um…Never mind! I thought I lost my keys. Here they are!"

I jingled the key ring into the cell phone for effect.

Like I said…my acting is kind of iffy.

If Hannelore suspected anything—which you know she did—she hid it well. "Oh-kay, then. Just remember what I said earlier."

"Tu casa es mi casa?"

"No, the other thing. If you come back pregnant, what you just said gets revoked." Then: "Have fun!" Click.

The train ride made no sense from a general distance perspective, since like I said, the Village stop and mine were the same space away from Conner's. But the wait for the train and the ride itself gave me some valuable thinkin' time. Pika sat on my lap and bounced on my thighs, probably experiencing his first bounce house.

"Thanks for the body image booster," I groaned at him.

Why wasn't I talking to Henry?

Today marked the first morning where he didn't wake me up with a phone buzz, or didn't nag me to meet someplace and learn about how the world is going to end. He wasn't nagging me at _all_, actually.

Samantha A—I'll stop with this bit, I swear!—asks, 'why don't you message him first?'

Real me can't do that without clearing the train wreck of emotions.

What train wreck? He's just some boy you know!

What train wreck. Yes, okay.

My eyes unfocused and glazed over while I counted the reasons up. He wasn't talking to me because I stormed out of that pizza place yesterday and revealed my identity as a SuperFreak. He wasn't talking to me because he believes Amber and thinks I'm not fit to be on their world-saving team. He wasn't talking to me because I'm whiny, annoying, snarky at best and snotty at worst, and because he has better things to wrap his mind around than a girl he probably can't wrap his arms around.

The train voice dinged. "Next stop: the Village."

"Thank _god_," I sighed. "Get up, Pika-pal. Time to head for the dungeon."

…

In Conner's defense, his room wasn't a dungeon _per se_. Dungeons have prisoners chained up on the walls and bloody remains on the ground. Conner's room had potato chip remains on the floor and the prisoners spinning in one of his computer chairs.

"Must you spin around like some socially-subversive child?" Conner snapped from his desk. The two Celebi Balls sat side by side in front of him. One had been opened such that both halves of the ball separated, and the strange metal tools in Conner's hands moved quickly. "I am trying to affect my genius, Samantha. Please."

'Affect my genius.' What did that even mean?

Pika lay prostrate across my lap and I continued to kick myself around Conner's floor, humming to myself to kill time.

It had already been twenty minutes and Conner and I hadn't so much as asked each other how the morning went. He let me inside, eyed my bag with those shifty eyes behind those pointy glasses, and started working as soon as I gave him the Ball.

Why had I said yes to this?

Samantha A: Was it because you fell victim of your own self-loathing and said 'yes' to the first boy to ask anything of you?

…Shut up, Samantha A.

"I imagine you're wondering what the code along my monitors represents," Conner pointed. His computer screens had blown up with that green code from the sci-fi movies.

"Not really," I said.

It prompted a laugh. Which was weird…when he laughed, Conner put none of himself into it. He just kind of huffed air out a little harder than normal. "You're an honest girl."

"Unlike Amber," I sang.

"You're honest and you're in the mood to vent your frustrations," Conner went on, his head still buried in Celebi Ball parts. Which is a strange phrase to read back, by the way. "Tell me, what troubles you?"

"What troubles me?" I stopped spinning, which was likely Conner's primary motive.

"Yes," he said simply. "Are you homesick?"

"Nah. Goldenrod's alright…minus the aliens trying to eat me."

"If only the Unseen were _just_ aliens," Conner mused. "They may be much more, if my project comes to fruition."

"Where did you learn to talk like that?"

Conner sat back in his chair, put the tools down, and brushed his hair back. I worried if I had insulted him or not. "I'm just kidding," I backtracked.

"No, it isn't that." Conner stood up and walked to the bookshelves. "I'm copying the new firmware into my prototype. I have a few moments to spare, and I promised you I would reveal some truths."

"Some truths," I repeated.

Conner pulled a large black binder from the tallest shelf. He waved me over, and over I did go.

Right away, I knew these pages were beyond Conner and myself. The paper had turned a dark, murky brown that flared out along the edges. Handwriting that was and wasn't our language—too many letters that didn't connect, too many symbols where there should have been paragraph breaks—covered the pages without margins. It was a fat stack of pages, too. The binder was easily as tall as my head and probably weighed more. Each page sat in its own plastic film.

"This is where we learned of the dates," Conner explained. He flipped the pages with meticulous fingers, seemingly taking care to choose the most important bits, but none of the images seemed any more relevant than any others. "Through this tome, we also learned of Mission Clears and our role in them."

"How so?" I asked, cutting the droll sarcasm. "I don't get it. How did you read this? It looks like…familiar, but…"

"Familiar, but not exactly?"

I looked at him, then nodded. "Yeah."

"Luckily for us, I already had a contracted job long before being designated a hero of humanity. I pay my rent through writing translation programs between humans and various breeds of Pokemon. The government pays a pretty penny for such programs, and with so many Pokemon still being discovered, it's quite a lucrative occupation."

I didn't ask why his parents demanded he pay rent.

"I had just finished adding a scanning function that would allow Pokemon Pseudotext, which is what scientists use to catalog interactions, to be translated by my machine effortlessly. You can imagine my surprise when that very night I find this binder with my Celebi Ball in Ilex Forest.

"You're laughing," Conner noticed. "Not at me, hopefully."

"Nah, not at all," I corrected. I couldn't tell him part of my laughing was just nerves. "Just…this all clicks, you know? It's ridiculous and sounds like some bogus sci-fi story, but it all makes sense."

"_All_ of it does," Conner emphasized. He turned from me and put the binder back on the shelf, slowly. The vinyl squeezed against the other hardcover texts. "I was chosen for this task. Only I, among so many others in this city, have the capacity to understand Mission Clears and dates."

I folded my arms. "More sensible all the time…"

"It doesn't end with me, either. If my hypothesis is correct, there is more to Amber than she lets on. Your bond to you Pikachu breaks laws that our Pokemon must adhere to." Conner referred to Pika not needing the Celebi Ball to be out and about. "In fact, only our fearless leader seems to be a random pick from a roster of so many teenagers in Goldenrod City."

"What's that mean to you? And to your hypothesis, or whatever."

"It means I have more research to do on our friend Henry." Then: "My prototype should be ready. Let's hope for the best, eh?"

He crossed past me and bent at his desk. His eyes shifted back and forth across the computer code effortlessly, with as much practiced finesse as a machine themselves.

While all of the bits of backstory clicked in my head, and I was learning more and more about the gravity of my situation, a phrase stuck out like a sore thumb. I scooped Pika in my arms. If crossing your arms is a defensive body language, I can't imagine what holding a ball of electric fury reads like.

"Research on our friend Henry," I repeated.

"Of course." He glanced up and read the mistrust written in my expression. "Do not misunderstand me! I would trust Henry or Amber with my life. I have on several occasions already.

"Consider that we were not always that way. While I do not consider them friends in the traditional sense, I know enough of them to give them control over my destiny. What is a friend if not that, Samantha?"

I didn't know. I was too busy with the next logical jump.

"You researched me?"

He disconnected several plugs from the desk. From where I stood in front of his monitors, I couldn't tell if he was unplugging a weapon or a flash drive. He rolled back to standing upright and held my Celebi Ball out. I could tell it was mine from how brightly it lit with fast natural colors, and how it didn't have a busted-up hinge.

I took the ball from his hand. His outstretched palm lingered.

"Actually, Samantha…I haven't researched you at all. I barely know two things about you."

"Oh, really." I tilted my head.

"Really. I know you only recently moved to Goldenrod, but not where from nor for what reason. I don't know where you'll be attending school, or even what grade you'll enroll in. If I wanted, I could find that information with even the most mundane of Internet research tools. What we like to think is private is but an opinion in today's networked landscape."

A crawl ran up my spine. "So…why didn't you? Do all of that stuff you just said," I waved a finger in the air. I couldn't repeat him even if I wanted.

Conner came from behind the desk to stand not three feet from me, piercing stare drilling into me.

A pause.

"I want you to tell me yourself," he said casually.

"Tell you about _me_," I clarified. I had to be careful here, I knew it. This could get really creepy really fast. "Why me? Looking up Henry and Amber was—"

"Looking up Amber is enough work to be considered a project, but that brings us off-topic," Conner said quickly, while still enunciating each and every letter. The guy could be the voice for his speech software. Heck, he probably was.

Get this: he dropped the fancy-schmanciness and slouched. Like a normal kid! He even put his hands on the desk and leaned into it. I noticed for the first time just how skinny he was. Conner had to be one of those guys that only ate for social functions. One of those guys that saw me as an over-indulgent mess.

"I cannot call Henry and Amber my friends, not after what we have gone through together," he explained. "When someone gives you life, and gives you the capacity to take theirs…if that defines the relationship between people, the luxury of familiarity is only that. We can act friendly, but no matter what, we are bonded by the tasks before us. That is not a friend. A friend acts how he or she does because to do otherwise would end the relationship. To have the option of friendship in an unmoving relationship…that, Samantha, is the definition of family."

…Did he rehearse that?

"I do not want our relationship," Conner nodded to me, "to begin on those grounds. I want to know you, Samantha. I want to know someone for them, for them to know _me_ for _me._"

"A real friend?"

His entire face tensed. As though he had been kicked in the crotch and dared not to cry.

"Yes," he said slowly. Very slowly.

So!

When we turn to the history books and ask ourselves, was Samantha Hutchinson aware that Conner had a crush on her? Was she aware that with three words, she enacted the weapon of the female gender and brought a boy to his knees by rejecting him without thought?

Did she mean to be cruel?

Did she mean to break someone who invited her over, chased her when she couldn't handle a bully, told her secrets of his world?

…Or maybe, just maybe, did she see these things only the second after she did them?

Was she Samantha A or Samantha B?

I put the Celebi Ball in my messenger bag.

"Should I come by tomorrow?" I asked, my voice at a whisper. I had no idea how to act. This never happens. I'm telling you, this whole boy-liking-me thing _never happens_. If I said something at my normal voice, he'd think I just hurt him and didn't even care….but by being soft to him, it was being pitying. Which was worse?

Why are boys so confusing?!

"It will depend on whether or not the prototype requires more copy-data," Conner said. I bet even he didn't know what that meant.

I got the memo anyway. Translation: Get out.

"Okay, then," I said. I showed myself the door.

…

Ring once.

Ring twice.

Ring for the world…

"Hi! This is Hannelore and Sam's place. Sorry, we're not here right now, so please—"

I tried her cell phone.

"Hey-o! It's Hannelore here. Sorry, my phone's off, if you could leave a message—"

I hit the call end button with such force, I was surprised my thumb didn't just come out the other end.

I was moving fast—five minutes post-dramatic-exit and I could already see the Village and its army of hipsters up ahead—and Pika struggled to keep up. He tripped over the debris on the sidewalk, had to dodge the occasional pedestrian, and he didn't have the benefit of clothes to stave off the biting cold.

I flipped through my phone's database to find someone else to call, and that did nothing besides make the problem worse. I never bothered to make friends, you know this already, so why did I think I'd have an army of girlfriends ready to hear about how I accidentally hurt a boy's feelings? And even if I did have their phone numbers, how would I manage to call them from all the way in Johto?

Hannelore was a bust. I wasn't comfortable enough in this new place to try making new friends.

That last person in my address book had his own issues in my mind.

I stopped at the crosswalk to let the cars zip past, and waited a few seconds more for Pika to catch up. He stood on his hind legs and put his front paws to his chest, heaving like a person. Or, more accurately, like me.

"Sorry, pal," I said. "I've just got a lot on my plate."

He nodded sympathetically, and then sat down with all of his weight thrown onto the ground. He was telling me: _I get that, sure. But why do we have to run?_

I was taking my frustrations out on myself through forcing a rare show of physical exercise, but Pika did nothing wrong. I'd be a moron if I could stomach living with the Boss for so long and not know the horrors of misplaced aggression.

I started to kneel down to Pika, then changed my mind and just sat next to him.

"We look like bums," I laughed. Then, noticing I still wore the guy out: "Ho-kay, so we'll take the underground home. We're taking the train, going home, raiding the corner store for rations, and not getting up for the next twenty-four hours, by which point I won't be mad about idiot boys. How's that sound?"

Pika seemed unresponsive until I stood back up. He reached for me like an infant.

"Sheesh!" I propped him back onto my shoulder. "You'd think after wiping out a bunch of demon things, you'd have cardio for days." Then: "I suppose you could turn that on me, though…Never mind!"

I found the underground station without having to take the main street. That helped somewhat to stave off unpleasant memories. Keeping Henry or Conner out of my head took deliberate effort, let me tell you.

A train pulled up to the platform quickly enough. And just my luck: the car not only pulled up right in front of me, but happened to be totally empty!

Also, just my luck: I sat down before seeing who I was directly across from.

These things typically only happen in movies, but then again, I suppose my life is movie material these days.

Amber's head hung, her red trench coat engulfing her like shield. Her hair hung lax at her shoulders, and when I looked for it, I spied the red ribbon wrapped at her wrist.

Pika sat in the chair next to me, and he knew better than to even budge. Henry was right: we _were_ bonding.

My gaze lingered just long enough. Amber glanced up, and _bam_, eye contact.

The train pulled out and into the dark tunnels, and while the incessant rattle of steel and stone bombarded my ears, the silence was cacophonous.

Amber spoke first. "New girl."

"Amber," I replied. "Hi."

"Hi." Then: "Where did you go?"

"Conner's."

She paused. "I meant—"

"I know what you meant," I said. Then, realizing how cold that sounded: "I just came here from there right now, too, so it's the same answer…yeah. Wait, what are you doing that for?"

Amber had been waving her hands in front of her chest while I spoke. She looked like she was trying to cast a spell.

"Making fun of you," Amber answered. "You have a nervous habit."

"_A_ nervous habit."

"When you get anxious, you ramble. And when you ramble, you start to play with your hands to try and say what your mouth can't." Amber did it again, to explain. "What are you worried about? It's just us."

I stayed quiet.

Luckily for conversation, Amber kept true to her reputation. "Don't tell me you're still angry about what happened yesterday. You're one of those girls that takes everything serious, I bet."

"Excuse me?"

Pika felt my voice rise and jumped, just a tiny bit. I went on: "Um, let me see. You act like I don't have a name…"

"Hey, look. Hand signals."

"…You told me to listen to you during the mission, then basically acted like I didn't exist…"

"That's three," Amber pointed to my fingers as they kept score.

"We almost died, so I had to have Pika get you out of the way, but somehow that meant I broke your precious command…"

"I wouldn't call it _precious_," Amber snickered.

"Then when we went to debrief, you lied to Henry, and he's not talking to me, so as far as I'm concerned, you got me fired. Thanks, Amber. Just what I needed. Precisely what the doctor ordered."

Amber feigned surprise, holding her hands by her chest in faux self-defense. "Where did this come from, new kid?"

"_Sam_!" I screamed. Hopefully the screech of the brakes on the train and the doors opening muted me a bit. "My name is _Sam_."

"_Sam_, whatever."

"Not 'Sam, whatever.' Sam."

Doors slammed shut and the train resumed motion.

Amber pointed with a feeble finger. "You just missed your stop, _Sam_."

I almost went after her again for continued indignation—you learn terms like that when the Boss throws them at you, up there with 'insubordination' and 'corporal punishment'—but let it slide. I take my tiny victories when I can. That, and between Conner and Henry, I might as well try to keep _one_ of these people from hating me.

"That's fine," I lied. "I wasn't getting off here."

"Oh." Then: "You're going to see your boyfriend, aren't you?" And when I felt my face flush crimson: "Yup, knew it. Lili owes me. Why does she bet against me, I have no idea…"

"He is _not_ my boyfriend."

"Scream that bit too. Maybe it won't sound so clichéd." She tilted her head, bit her lower lip. "Though I suppose this whole…look you have is pretty unorthodox. Affordable?"

I was up before I knew I would be up. I blinked fast to stave off the sudden motion sickness. "You are _seriously_ messed up, Amber. What is your _problem_ with me?"

The train stopped, whooshed the doors open then closed, and we were back on the shrouded road.

Amber made a show of standing up to face me. She brushed imaginary crumbs from her lap, rested her hands together as she leaned forward, then bounced to her full height and let her curls fall into place.

Ugh. _Girls_.

"I asked you one first, Sam."

"My outfit is _not_ affordable. My sweaters mean more to me than—"

"Not _that_ one, Sam. The important one. Are you going to see him?"

Was I?

Of course not. I was going home. And the only reason I wasn't home right now was because Amber decided to show up out of the void and start picking fights.

I said none of that, mind you. Once again, my silence did me in. The left side of Amber's mouth curled into a smile. If she hadn't sighed for a year, or close her eyes rather than roll them, then I might have decked her. Not that I've ever decked anybody before, but there was a first time for everything.

I was _this_ close to knocking Amber out, which is why her next words changed everything.

"I actually hoped you were. He needs a friend right now, and Lord knows that's not me."

She sat down, this time on my side of the car, right beside me. I figured it'd be impolite not to join her.

"I don't suppose he told you about his home life, huh?"

I shook my head. Amber placed her hands in her lap, one on top of the other. I noticed the curved outline of Lili's Celebi Ball in her coat pocket.

"Yeah, Henry's dad might run the Department Store, but ask him what he thinks of Trainers. The man thinks it's just glorified cockfighting." She laughed that I-can't-believe-this-actually-happened laugh. "The first time we went to buy supplies, Henry's dad went ballistic. He said Conner and I were his Trainer friends, and we were corrupting his innocent son." Amber rolled her eyes that time.

"That's why he has to steal them," Amber explained. "The healing items. It's also why he has to buy in insane bulk, in case that was a question, too. That would have to be some whacked-out Unseen, for us to need something like a hundred Max Revives. It's just so if his dad ever catches him, we have a stash.

"Hey, you're fidgeting again." Amber pointed across to my lap. Looking at her dainty porcelain hands first, my doughy, pasty, anxiety-ridden hands were simply a crude imitation. "Am I making you uncomfortable? Is my presence just too much for you?"

I barely stopped myself from smiling.

"But yeah," Amber went on. "Henry's dad went and checked out the shelves on the Trainer supplies floor, which he never does. Meaning if you ask any sane person, the old man was trying to find an excuse to start something. Anyway.

"So he finds out that, wow, there's a bunch of stuff missing. The floor manager never noticed because Trainers are in and out of there every day. Which is another thing: kids getting trounced by Whitney keeps that store in business, so why does Henry's dad want to shut that part down? What's he _smoking_?"

Okay, it was fine to smile at that one.

We passed another stop, and still nobody got on. It was still pretty early in the day, I remembered. Pika almost froze his paws off, and this was during the day. Stupid Johto winters.

"Back to my point, that man is insane." Amber threw her head back for emphasis. "You know the only reason Henry won't let Hammo out is because of his dad? Lili could come out right now and it would be okay, same for Conner's Staravia."

I held up a hand.

"Yes, Miss New Girl," Amber joked.

"I thought your Pokemon couldn't exist outside of their balls, without a Dome open, or something weird like that."

"Close! Hey, Henry must be a really good teacher, huh? For you to remember all of that technobabble, I mean." She flashed an admiring grin. Then: "That's not really true. They need to be tethered to a Celebi Ball to be in our world, but they can be out whenever. Lili's not out because she hates getting ice on her skirt." Amber smirked.

I remembered: that night in Ilex Forest, Hammo had been outside the whole time. _Dur_, Sam.

"I get the feeling Staravia comes out when nobody's in his room," Amber said thoughtfully. "He knows better than to keep a bird that powerful cooped up all day…

"Right! The Department Store. Henry's dad flipped, and he went off. Team leader did the right thing and his Hammo's ball before his dad showed up. Pops just thinks he stole some stuff and peddled it on the street. Which makes no sense. It's like the man doesn't even _know_ Henry.

"I mean, Sam, _you_ know Henry. Does he strike you as a scalper?" Before I could answer: "No, he doesn't. Obviously."

Another train platform came and went.

"He calls me this morning an absolute mess, can't even speak, much less speak coherently…says he just needed to blow off some steam and get out for a minute…God, I bet he's back at work, acting like nothing happened. How can Henry just do that? How can _anybody_ just do that? How does someone like Henry let old man do whatever he wants, to _whomever_ he wants, about_ whatever_ he wants…

"And Henry's the sweetest kid I know! God, that gets me. When parents act like their kids are the worst on the planet? What, pops? How is your son, who is saving the world in his part time while going to school and working in your store, the worst kid on earth? Pull some of the druggies that Goldenrod has _in spades_ and plop them in Henry's position, and you'd think Henry's dad would be happier. It's insane."

"Amber?"

"_What?" _

I scooted back just enough to evade the blast zone. "You were counting." I pointed across. "Your fingers…counting, that's all." Then: "Please don't eat me with your anger."

That got me my first un-ironic Amber smile.

"You're _not_ going to Henry," Amber mused. "What, you have a hot date or something?"

"He never said anything," I said honestly.

"Nothing. About anything. Everything I just said is breaking news in Sam World. Is that right?"

I nodded.

"Yeesh." Amber ran a hand down her round face. "Do me a favor, Sam? When you see him, act like you didn't know anything? Pretend I never said a word. This didn't happen." She waggled a finger between us. I waggled back to prove a point, and like clockwork…"Don't use your weird hand gestures at me, new girl!"

Amber jumped to her feet. Pika had been sleeping; her feet slamming the ground brought him back to the living world.

"If you're not going home, and not to Henry's…do you want to come with me? It's just a little side-quest, it won't take long. There's a Twilight tonight, but we'll be done with time to spare. Trust me."

I wore my reluctance on my sleeve. "Don't give me that puppy dog stare, I'm not trying to be a scumbag this time."

"Why were you a scumbag yesterday?" I didn't mean for…okay, so I _did_ mean to be snotty that time.

The door opened wide, almost as wide as Amber's smile.

"I'll let you know when I feel like it."

"Oh, that's reassuring."

She started for the platform and the ice world of Goldenrod City. God, I really _did_ have no clue where we were. We could go up to the land of the living and end up with Santa.

"Are you coming? Or not? I still haven't revealed our destination, by the way." Amber lifted her arms over her head and bent backward. "So if you don't like it, tough beans."

"No, it's fine," I said as I followed. "Anywhere is good to me."

* * *

As always, thanks for reading and thanks again for reviewing.


	8. Trauma case

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

- "Trauma case."

"Okay, okay. I've got the first line figured out." Amber cleared her throat and began typing with ferocity. "'Dear Loser (David). I hope everything is fine up in the gulag. I'd ask you how you're doing, but we both know I don't care.' How's that?"

Maybe my jaw hung a little _too_ low.

"That's what I thought too," Amber said thoughtfully. "It's angry, but it's not frothy. I want _froth_ in this letter. Froth must _ooze_ from the mail."

We were in the Global Link communications center, located not far from the Radio Tower, because the business center liked having landmarks and zero appeal for pedestrian tourists, or pedestrians in general. In case you're curious, it's the Global Link communications center instead of the Global Link Communications Center, or the global link Communications Center, for a reason. The Global Link sent emails to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Each major city had its own communications center. Hence, the importance. You get it? I think you get it.

Here's how it worked. You went inside the lobby of this gaudy building shaped like a globe and shelled out some money in exchange for a booth and time. Then you went onto whatever floor of the building they told you, found your booth, and voila! There's a terminal there for you to use.

I had never been to a communications center before, partly because I never had anyone who needed to know where I was and who didn't hover around me 24/7. I could tell Pika had never been inside either. He tried chewing on the mousepad the second we sat down, and when he gave up with that, he tried chewing on the booth's leather.

Note to self: bring a bottle of ketchup whenever I go out. Which probably brings a lot of Freudian things to mind, but…well, never mind.

I sat beside Amber, just enough to see the screen. When you have to pay money to use a computer, they make sure to give you state of the art hardware. The screen and keyboard were those fancy blue hologram types, with the screen hovering above the glass tabletop and the keyboard embedded into it. Snazzy.

"May I ask a question?"

"Yes, Miss New Girl."

"Why are you writing a letter to someone you don't like?" I pointed to the opening line. "I wouldn't like it if I opened a letter and it was just someone sending me negativity."

"_God_, Sam. Are you always on?"

"Excuse me?" Snotiness levels at thirty percent.

"Just…okay, preface? This is probably the longest I've been around you. Right?"

I nodded.

"Right. But from what I can tell, you've got something eating at you. It's why you're always so hard-up to defend people like Henry, or to fight bullies like…" She paused, then: "Like I can be, sometimes. Do you ever just relax? Enjoy your life, have a cheap laugh every now and then?"

I didn't respond, and Amber took that to signal a victory. It _wasn't_, but we were bonding, so I let it slide. I'd let many things slide that day, I realized.

Amber went back to tacking away at the keys, but I wasn't in the mood to watch. She started getting pretty nasty. "I think you've used every bad word I know."

"Sweet. The Sam Stamp of Approval."

"Is that all really necessary, or..?"

She stopped typing again, not before slamming the shortcut for saving her current message. "Sam, this boy once refused to call me Satan, because it would apparently be an insult to Satan.

"Don't laugh! Nobody invited you to laugh with him!" Which only made me laugh harder, naturally.

When I finally calmed down and Amber almost got back to writing, I raised a hand again.

"What is it _now_, Miss New Girl?"

"Um…So who's David the Loser?"

"He's not a loser, he's my brother," Amber sighed. "He's actually a very successful guy for his age and he's probably knee-deep in women as we speak, but in my head he's a scumbag, and that's how it is." And before I could ask anything else: "Why don't you write something to someone? It's kind of a waste of money not to."

Amber had offered to pay my way inside, but I shut her down. My ego cost me a potential slice of pizza later for lunch.

The way our booth was set up, four people could feasibly write on their own hologram screens. All I had to do was scoot over and wait for the sensors to notice me, and then _bam_, I was in business.

"It's not like I have anybody to write to, though," I told Amber truthfully.

"No pals overseas? Nobody over in Kanto?" Just to push it: "Come on, there's gotta be _someone_ in Kanto you miss. We all have somebody like that. Some days, I think this whole country is just a bunch of people missing Kanto. Not that I can say that without being the Anti-Patriot."

I thought I missed the joke. Must be a Johto thing.

Anyway, I thought it over and saw Amber's suggestion for what it was. She didn't want me peering over her shoulder while she basically talked with her brother. How would I have felt if Amber spied on my conversations with Hannelore? I scooted into another seat, and like clockwork, the screen and keyboard turned on.

I did have one person in Kanto I could write to. I hadn't talked to her since that night I packed up, scrambled outside while looking feverishly for the Boss's car coming up the road, and dashed onto the Magnet Train. And while I couldn't send her any messages because I didn't have my own computer and my cell phone couldn't email cross-country, I wasn't sure I would have contacted her anyway.

Did I mention I'm kind of self-destructive in that way?

I didn't have to dig into my cell phone's memory to find Lucy's email address. I knew it by heart.

I began to type.

…

"How'd it go for you?" Amber asked. We left after our hour time limit came up, clearing the screen and locking it until the next person showed up. Amber tried hitting the table to get her screen back, but more people were already here and waiting. The Global Link in Saffron City was pretty popular too, but I never would have imagined people coming to blows over using a public service.

Nah, that's not true. Have you ever seen a homeless guy try to fight a drunk, all from the safety of your local public library?

"Fine," I answered curtly.

"Just fine? Come on, I told you who I wrote to." Amber stretched her arms up, then held her hands behind her head and slowed her pace a bit. It was finally the afternoon, with all the sleepy afternoon-iness it entailed. "It's not a boyfriend, is it? Henry would be _so_ hurt."

"I don't have a boyfriend." And too late: "What's that have to do with Henry?"

She didn't have to answer that. Was I really that transparent? God, I must be the worst actress in history. In the_ universe_. An Unseen would make a better actor.

Better change the subject.

"Lucy," I said. It was strange to hear. I felt like I'd not heard her name since, well, forever ago. In a way, that was the truth. I had been a different person. "My best friend."

"Ooh, best friend, huh? What's Lucy doing over in Kanto?"

"I think she's traveling now, so I don't know when she'll get the chance to write me back."

"So Lucy's a Pokemon Trainer..?"

"I don't think so. She wanted to see the world…" There was more to it, but I wasn't about to tell Amber about the Chief or our promises to each other. The ones that I broke, and all.

"I like her already," Amber announced to the crowded sidewalk. The corporate suits were heading back to the offices, and the lost tourists with families and cameras around their necks were starting to slow down and sit.

"You don't know anything about her," I shot back.

"Touchy. What, is she your hot date, too?"

"I told you, Lucy's my best friend." Then, to keep Amber from taking her joke further, I added in my quietest voice: "She's my only friend."

The truth bounced off of Amber's coat like a rain droplet. "I don't believe that for a minute. What about Pika there?" She jabbed a finger into his red cheek as he rode on my shoulder. She was the poster-child for both Anti-Patriotism and Tempting Fate.

"I met Pika right before I met Henry, and then all of you."

"BS. What about your classmates?"

"I was the fat girl who the teachers liked to scream at. I mean, they had a reason to, I never did my homework and I suck at basically every subject you can imagine. I was nice to my classmates, but—"

"But kids don't go near you if you're a trauma case, do they?"

I started to nod, but then I caught what Amber said. Hold on.

You ever get the feeling someone is adding words to you that, while they're the truth, didn't come _from_ you?

"Trauma case?" I repeated. "I'm not a trauma case. At least, I think I'm not…"

"Please. We're all trauma cases. The four of us: you, me, and the boys. I'm thinking we all got chosen for that reason, like it's an experiment to see how long it takes for a bunch of sad-sack, busted teenagers to break." Total non-sequitur: "Hey, I'm starved, and Ray's is right over here. Down for some 'Za?"

"What's 'Za?"

"Pizza! But like, you know…hip."

We turned the corner and went down one of those sketchy-looking side streets, where people park motorcycles and homeless people leave their shelters to go panhandle for the day. We came out on the other side at Ray's, from yesterday, and sat at the booth from before.

Amber checked her phone. "It's a little after one….Twilight's at the Trainer School at four…We've got time. I'm getting two slices of cheese, what do you want?"

I reached for my bag, but Amber rolled her eyes. "Cut it out, new girl. I'm buying. What do you want?"

Personal note: I hate it when people buy lunch for me. I'm always afraid I'll order too much, or not eat enough, or eat too much.

"Whatever you're having," I said.

"Got it. And…root beer for Pika, right?"

Pika bounced onto the seat and nodded.

When Amber came back with two places, a basket of garlic bread, and three root beers, I asked if she knew the magic spell for carrying everything, ever.

"I'm a woman of many talents," Amber said happily. Then, to take the air out of the room: "So here's what we're doing. You're eating your pizza and being quiet, and I'll explain what I meant by 'trauma case'. Starting in three…two…one."

I bit into warm, succulent garlic bread, and listened.

"One does not simply become a trauma case. I'm starting with this because…well, it's a lot like the 'Boy Who Cried Wolf'. Every sob-story teenager in the world thinks she's a trauma case because daddy won't buy her a Porsche, or because Billy cheated on her with Mandy, or God forbid her parents take away her phone after sending pictures of her ass to Billy in the first place."

"Did that happen?" I asked.

"Of course it did. I'm projecting, Sam. Listen.

"God, I'm here buying a girl pizza so I can bare my soul to her, and she's asking if I'm lying." She shook a fist in the air. "Curse you, Gods!"

That shut me up, and quick.

"Now, to really be a trauma case, you have to have _never_ claimed the title. It sneaks up on you, new girl. All insidious-like. The _last_ thing you want to be is labeled a trauma case. And you know these rules because you knew two people, and they both took the different labels. Sweet Mama never called herself a trauma case until she was divorced—twice—and living it up with Husband Number Three somewhere in Sinnoh. She sends you a postcard on your birthday, when she finds the time.

"Because she's so _busy_." Amber clicked her tongue.

"The second person wants to be a trauma case more than he wants to be normal, which, like I said, is typical of everyone in today's media-bloated, self-gratifying cesspool of society. He was never close with Sweet Mama to begin with, but he knows he wants that Porsche to take Mandy to prom, and he'll never get it with his crap grades and negative ambition.

"But lo! If he cries enough, he thinks, Dear Daddy will notice.

"Of course, Daddy doesn't.

"'But then, I'll just get him to listen,' the boy thinks. 'I'll get so drunk at those fancy I-go-for-the-political-connections parties that he ends up in disgusting tabloids. I'll straight-up _break_ Mandy by knocking her up, socking Billy when he rides in on a white horse, and when the police show up, I'll tell Daddy Warbucks that I'm just so _troubled_. He pays bail _and_ I get a Porsche!

"'Mandy's broken, but she'll still go to prom with me. All she has to do is look pretty.'" Amber shook parmesean on her slices. "David never liked it when pretty girls opened their mouths to_ speak_."

She chewed fast, gulped the root beer like someone would take it away.

"Eat your pizza," she demanded. I took a slice and started to nibble at the crust. Saffron City townies eat pizza backwards. Sue me.

"Back to Sweet Mama. She asks her kids to come spend the vacation with her, and they do. She asks Second Child to go boutique shopping. They blow more money than Sevii Islands has its entire economy. They laugh at the clerks who aren't stinking rich because they're _stupid._ Sweet Mama is smart. She divorced a politician, and then a billionaire playboy right after.

"But then, get this! She buys her fifteen-year-old daughter a drink, because rich people don't believe in hokey things like _laws_, and she just breaks down. Tears everywhere! Her hundred-dollar mascara job bleeds.

"'I'm a good woman,' she's sobbing. 'I never meant for this. I didn't mean to bring out the worst in your brother, rob your father of his precious family man image. I'm a good person. I don't do this to people.' And she adds: 'Amber, how can I change?'

"Pleads with the Second Child. 'Amber, help me.'

"'Help me, because since I wrecked your father's reputation right before he became Johto Prime Minister, Hoenn thinks they can overpower him and finally launch that war they've wanted for so long. I might just cause the Fourth War.'"

She took another agonizing bite of 'Za, drained the root beer, and left for the soda machine.

I didn't dare breathe.

Like…okay. There's the 'me' I show to the world, and the 'me' I keep inside. You know both of them: there's the 'me' that misses Lucy and hates the Boss and hates herself, and the 'me' that's afraid of boys and hates her weight. That first 'me' can kill somebody if she wants, I'm sure of it. She's angry enough, she just has that other 'me' to keep it in its place, all Freud-y.

This was Amber's first 'me'. If I did anything but sit here and eat, she could—and would—do something awful.

I joined her for a refill. We took our seats, still warm from moments ago.

"Sorry! Storytelling sure works up the ole' thirst glands," Amber said. "This is Chapter Two: The Wreckoning. With a 'W'."

I refused to laugh.

"So, Second Child and David—because screw giving him an alias—go back to Dear Dad. It's true, he's meeting with advisors. They need to attack Hoenn first, before it goes south. And they think, they might have a plan to stop it. Might involve Celebi and some other legendary being locked up in Goldenrod, might not."

Amber shrugged.

I just about peed my pants.

"But funny enough, that GS Ball they need is in the hands of some punk kid from Pallet Town, in Kanto. Unless they do something downright _sinister_, like perhaps hold some kid from New Bark Town's family hostage to get that punk kid and retrieve the GS Ball, the plan might not work.

"Surely, Dear Dad wouldn't go that far. That's just downright evil."

Amber swallowed the crust from her first slice. Wiped her mouth.

"Ethan runs to the one place he shouldn't. He runs to Battle Frontier…controlled by Kanto—also known as Johto's Lapdog—and owned by Hoenn.

"Good news, everyone! Once we perfect the technology for something literally _worse than a nuclear weapon_, we can say Hoenn is harboring a fugitive, and launch it at Lillycove City. Checkmate.

"Sam, I am not a trauma case." Her stinging tone remained, but the pretense was done. "I am a person. Unlike them, I am a person with a soul.

"A person who knows she has to make a stand. So she has Sweet Mama wire her some money from her trust fund—just one percent of it, a million dollars, chump change at most—and then runs to Goldenrod. To blow the whistle. To let it stop, before this goes too far."

Her voice cracks. Then it's stoic, and the world keeps going.

"Maybe she's trying to get attention, just like David. Maybe she wants her parents to see where they've taken the world, and make up, because that's what this is all about. Mommy and Daddy issues make the world go round.

"Not for daddy to send a task force after her. For them to get caught in the first Twilight and said task force get eaten alive by Unseen.

"She's glad she had cash, now, isn't she?

"She's glad that she finds a Celebi Ball in the forest that night, with the two boys that saved her life. She's living in a hostel with her pal, Lilligant the Elegant Ass-Kicker, trying to save the world."

Amber drained the root beer again, attacked her pizza with grizzly hunger. When she looked up, it wasn't an expression of hurt, anger, outrage…

It's the sweet smile Amber has never shown me before.

"That's trauma case material, Sam. For reference."

She checked her phone. "Prepaid, by the way," she said, waving it in her hand. "We've got a few more minutes. Finish eating, I'm gonna hit the restroom."

She stood up, and I finally had something to say.

If there's anything I like when I'm in 'first me' mode, it's a joke.

"Your story had a plothole," I said smugly. When she turned around: "You didn't explain the red ribbon."

"Oh god, you're right!" She laughed. An honest, soothing, soul-healing laugh. "Great catch!

"Yeah, it's Mandy's. We were best friends."

…

Trainer School was located on the edge of Leppa Hills, a fancy neighborhood with mansions and limos and nary a wild Pokemon or young person in sight. Note that when I say 'young', I mean 'walking outside'. Again, there were limos. The underground didn't even stop in this neighborhood, because riding the underground didn't reek enough of disposable income. The walk over took longer than the walk to the downtown underground, the ride to the end of the line, and that unfortunate incident where Amber had to find another restroom.

"And if you tell anyone what conspired in this train station, Sam, I'll hunt you down," she promised. Pika let a few giggles slide past, but I knew better. You can laugh with Amber, but never when she's watching you.

Anyway, Trainer School. Amber and I stood before the iron-gate, her arms folded and mine lax, hand gripping my bag strap.

Amber whistled through her teeth. "I thought _I_ went to a fancy school. This must be one of those places where PTA has more power than the law."

"Like the ones on TV," I added.

Amber nodded. "Yeah. Except in the schools on TV, kids learn actual stuff. Trainer Schools are for pretentious wanna-be's with Pokemon dripping in Daddy Dollars."

"They can't be that bad." I didn't want to defend a bunch of rich kids, but it wasn't right for Amber to insult people she didn't know, either.

Amber pulled her arms out and flapped them at her sides. "Sam, you've been in less battles than I've had boyfriends in my short fifteen years on Earth. Yet, I can promise you that you and Pika could trounce every A-student behind this gate."

"That's because we're bonded," I said. Then, remembering my unused Celebi Ball: "Or, we're starting to bond. Bonding."

Amber threw her head back and sighed. "New girl, do the world a favor? Learn to take a compliment."

"I'll gladly take one should the opportunity arise," Conner said as he crossed the street toward us. He hadn't changed his outfit from this morning.

Amber didn't look at him. "The opportunity to pay Conner a compliment…I think that's in the book of revelations somewhere."

Conner stood with us now. Three kids outside a school we obviously didn't go to. I love being semi-legal in the afternoon.

He paid me a cursory glance and bob of the head. "Samantha."

I waved a limp hand. "Hey."

Amber's eyebrows went into the sky at our exchange, and then shot back down before Conner could see.

"Where's fearless leader?" She changed the subject. Even Henry made a better topic than the awkward No Topic.

"He messaged me on the walk over. He should be along shortly. Now then, the Clear Condition."

"We can't start without him," I said shrewdly.

"I have accounted for Henry's tardiness and delegated him a lesser priority role," Conner said mechanically. "He is already aware of the Clear Condition of the evening. Now then." Conner pushed his glasses back. "You both understand this is a private school."

"_Duh_," Amber drawled. She jabbed a fierce thumb toward the gate.

"Goldenrod Trainer School exercises its right to design its own calendar year. Students are still in session, even at this moment. Classes end at five and begin at seven in the morning."

"Why does that seem cruel and unusual?" Amber mused.

"The Mission Clear requires us to bring all sensitive bodies to where we stand, just outside the iron gate. Obviously, then, we will be dealing with other teenagers like ourselves. Though unlike us, they have no partners, no familiarity with Unseen and no understanding of their importance to our survival."

Amber groaned. "They'll run around like chickens with their heads cut off as soon as the Unseen start chewing the scenery." Then: "What's the plan, Fran?"

Dare I say it, Conner seemed proud of his handiwork. "It's glorious, Amber. You and I stay right where we are."

"Come again?"

"Herding the students to our position is the easy part," he explained. He held one hand out and gestured with his forefinger. Not that I knew what the gestures meant. "I imagine the Unseen will choose to attack the large number of unarmed students out in the open versus the stragglers inside a crowded building."

Amber nodded once, twice. "Makes sense," she admitted. "Sam and Henry are the away team, then?"

"Precisely."

Conner paused when I smirked at the word. It's not my fault Mad Scientists make me laugh.

He continued on after a moment. "Pika and Hammo are smaller Pokemon. They are unevolved species, meaning they are more accustomed to quick dodging and acrobatics as opposed to stationary battle technique. Lili and Staravia are build to take blows and repay the debts twofold."

Amber realized what this meant: she'd probably have to wipe out over half of the Unseen in this mission, solo. You could hear her mouth begin to salivate.

Henry arrived not long after. We spent the few minutes of down time going though strategies, planning out ways to avoid frightening kids, what to do if we hit someone and they need to be carried. I suggested Staravia just airlift wounded kids; Conner reminded me that Staravia's talons can crush solid stone, and that's on the 'gentle' setting.

"That's just putting bad vibes in the universe, thought!" Henry beamed. I had forgotten why I liked him in the first place. "Sam and I have this. And if anything goes wrong, we can just jump off the roof before the Unseen take over the world!"

Amber laughed way too hard. "Morbid, but I like it. That's team leader for you: fearless in the face of fear."

I checked the time on my phone. 3:58:45 and counting. We broke up into teams again. Conner and Amber virtually glued their feet to the sidewalk. Amber flipped Lili's Celebi Ball like a gambler with his dice, while Conner simply let his hands rest in his pockets. Henry and I—Pika staring straight into the school like an Olympic runner—were at the gate.

"Hey, sorry if I've been kind of distant," Henry started. "I've been kind of busy. With the store and everything, I mean."

That and getting screamed at by an old man who refuses to give you a break.

"It's fine," I lied. Then, the truth: "I can't get mad at you for not talking to me. Unlike me, some of us have lives."

Henry put his thumb and forefinger to his chin. "Hm. I just got off work and now I'm here fighting demon. Help me, Sam. If that's a life, then please, by all means, sign me up with the local squares."

God, I was growing nostalgic for the faraway land of yesterday. I hadn't traded goofy smiles with Henry in a millennia.

Then, I thought about what that smile was hiding.

Conner, Amber, Henry and I all shared parent angst, and we all had our own ways of dealing with it. Conner threw himself into real life sci-fi stuff, and Amber fought to sabotage the family she left behind. I eat my feelings, sulk around behind headphones, and generally do nothing to improve my already short life-expectancy.

I wanted to know Henry, too.

I opened my mouth to speak—

Stupid good timing of the universe.

Would you believe the Dome came over us right at that _exact_ second?

Two explosions of white light and Lili and Staravia were out, one engrained and ready to fight and the other circling overhead. Henry dropped his Celebi Ball casually and Hammo took the stage, wandering around Henry's legs before joining Pika for the show.

I turned to Henry. "Mission start?"

He nodded. "Let's rock." He pointed straight forward. "Hammo, take that gate apart."

Hammo opened his mouth, and a very-literal inferno ripped from his jaw and seared a hole into the gate. The edges were still burning when Henry ran for the hole, jumped through with Hammo just behind, and kept going. Part of me wanted him to turn back, hold my hand and guide me through so I didn't cook myself; the other half wanted to run through and be equally as cool as Henry was. Oh, and there's that part that just wanted to go home, but we don't talk about Samantha C much.

Pika and I kicked off the ground, leapt through the flaming gate, and followed Henry across the paved courtyard and toward the Trainer School entrance. I hoped he'd come to a grinding halt when the door didn't open, but then I remembered: I just started saving the world a few days ago. Today's another day where I'm risking my life; for Henry, it's another weekday.

"Okay, at the door: Take Down!"

Hammo was suddenly a missile, and the door and its more-expensive-than-Hannelore's-apartment-building paint job were subsequently splinters beneath my sneakers.

For all of the build-up of being in a rich snobby school, Trainer School was an awful lot like Suburban Normal High School. Lockers lined the walls, doors had one window and opened into rooms with desks and a whiteboard, tile floors and overhead lights…

Okay, so maybe the lockers were keypad-locked, the tile floor was actually stained wood, the school mascot shield emblazoned the walls and the whole thing smelled of pine sol. I officially felt poor.

The first blood-curdling scream came at my left. Henry and Hammo were on it, me and Pika bringing up the rear.

The familiar pools of dark shadow roamed across the fancy floors, and when you see three of them all sneak into one classroom, you know it's time to put up or shut up.

The door was already opened a crack; Hammo ran through and Henry slammed his shoulder into it, throwing the door wide open. Already an entire Unseen had taken up half of the room. The other two shadows had grown arms and were groping their surroundings. Life must suck when you don't have room to generate eyeballs.

….Not that Unseen had eyeballs anyway…

Another scream, and this time I could find the source. A girl a year or so younger than myself, wearing a blue pleated skirt and matching top, huddled behind the teacher's desk. A combined four arms began crawling over the wood surface, looking for their next meal.

Henry was on the other side of the classroom, and Hammo showing off his Conner-approved air dodges. He called worriedly: "Sam?"

"I'm on it! Pika…Shock Wave?" Because what Pikachu doesn't know Shock Wave?

Pika bounced forward just enough to keep me out of the blast range. He flexed every muscle, then released, jumping up and flinging all of his limbs out and wagging his tail. A golden glow surrounded Pika and, with the sound of a whip on wet flesh, the glow shot out at each arm simultaneously. The two Unseen recoiled, their arms slinking back into the shadowy depths.

The girl behind the desk shut her eyes and stuck her hands over her ears. Hear no evil, see no evil. I knelt beside her and put a hand on her knee. She jumped to her feet, and I can only hope my smile was half as comforting as Henry's.

Cue his hardened battle cry: "That's a wrap—Flame Crash!"

I pulled my headphones up, then threw my hands over the girl's ears. "I'm sorry about this."

The mind-splitting cry never got easier to stomach. The Unseen stained black splotches along the walls as it sank back to its grimy depths. Hammo ran back to the doorway, joining Pika on a silent surveillance.

I let go of the girl's ears and stood slowly, holding her shoulders and guiding her as gently as possible. Seconds after her first Unseen experience and she was babbling at the mouth. What a familiar sight, I marveled.

"What's your name?" I asked.

She didn't make eye contact, much less give me an answer.

Screams from the floor above us—

"Sam, we don't have time for this," Henry urged me.

I knew he was right, but I wasn't about to create another trauma case if I could help it. The girl and I made a quick eye contact, and by God, did I keep it.

"I'm Samantha," I said quickly. "What's your name?"

She tried once, twice, then the third time's the charm. "M-Melissa—"

"Melissa, I need you to run out to the courtyard as fast as you can. Do you think you can do that for me?"

Furniture crashed into the upper floor, echoing like bombs in an echo chamber. Henry pulsed at the door frame, waiting but conflicted—

"Go ahead, I'll catch up," I called to him. And when he didn't take me seriously: "What are you, scared to go alone? Hurry up!"

I turned back to Melissa. "Are you ready?"

"I can't," she sobbed. "I can't. Where are my friends? Where's Ms. Kochalka? I can't, I can't—"

Henry took off down the hall, Hammo blazing. He cleared a path, but that only bought us seconds at most. This was only going to happen if I gave her a push.

"Melissa, on the count of three, we're going to run for that door," I started. She sobbed harder, and I swear, you'd have thought I just laid out a death sentence. Though in her defense… "I'm not following you, but I'll make sure nothing happens to you, either. Are you ready?"

"I can't, I can't," she begged. But when I took her hands and marched for the doorway, she didn't fight me.

There's probably a story somewhere about Hannelore or the Boss or Lucy about that special kind of courage, but now's not the time.

"One," I counted. Her tears dried up fast. "Two."

Pika, always one for social cues, marched into the shattered hallway and took his ready stance.

"Three! Go!"

Melissa flew. She ran down the hall with hell at her back, and with a simple right turn, she was in the courtyard and in Staravia and Lili's hands. Talons. Vines.

Then, idiot me, I considered sitting and taking a breather. That's when the ceiling decided to crumble above my head and sink the entire structure, taking with it untold donations from the obscenely wealthy. If I screamed, I couldn't hear my own voice over the cascading rubble and the thunderclap of snapping metal. Dust and smoke assaulted my vision and I covered my face with trembling hands.

Once the debris settled, I made out two black blobs shrinking until they were no more. Which might have been good if Hammo weren't on the floor, fighting for breath against gashes so deep that…well, let's say I had no idea bones were _that_ white.

And to Mr. Ray of Ray's Pizza, I apologize. Your culinary skills are fabulous, and if I could have _not_ thrown up right there, life would be that much more grand.

The connection between Hammo and Henry flashed in front of me. I tore past the dust and rubble, one hand steading myself against the wall and the other in my bag. Pink is for Hyper Potion, because of course the most expensive one is pink. That's just girl logic.

Hammo fought for every breath, and the longer I knelt beside him and watched, the more I stopped trusting myself to go through with what I had to do.

I used that soothing, sweetheart voice reserved for movie stars and boys who look like movie stars. "This will sting, okay?" I took in a shaky breath. "Okay."

I twisted the nozzle of the Hyper Potion and sprayed the solvent along Hammo's wounds. I expected a small, piggish squeal of hellfire agony, but it didn't come. Whether or not that was good or bad, the jury was still out. But if Hammo was breathing, then I just had to find Henry—

"He's alive!" said a panicked voice from the classroom above. The room missing a complete floor. "Kid? Hey, kid! Hey!"

"Leave him alone!" I shrieked. I backed up enough that I could see through the hole at the group of kids. Five boys this time, all in blazers with combed hair and pleated pants.

Then, glad I remembered to ask: "Is that all of you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" the chubbiest one yelled back. His second chin had jiggle physics. "Everyone else is gone, it's just us. I saw some girls in 304—"

"Where is that?"

"What, do you have a death wish?"

"No, I'm trying to _save _all of you, idiot." Samantha A comes out to shine. "Can you get downstairs?"

The boy actually laughed at me. "You _are_ insane."

Rarely do I want to strangle someone with my own hands.

"Sam?" Henry called. I couldn't see him, and that just made it worse. The battle cry was replaced by a sad, beaten, worried whine. "Sam?!"

"Henry, I'm here!" I told Samantha B that if she started crying, Sams A and C would give her something to cry about. "Hammo's fine, you're gonna be fine. It'll be fine." To myself: "It'll be fine, it'll be fine, it'll be fine—"

The chubby boy just about messed himself. He pointed behind me, and suddenly all of the boys were doing the same, and I was in that one movie about aliens that snatch bodies.

I turned, and reveal: three full-grown Unseen now in the wreckage of the halls, and one Pika.

* * *

As always, thanks for reading and thanks double for reviewing.


	9. Start from the beginning

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

- "Start from the beginning."

Good news! I finally discovered where the eyes are on an Unseen.

Trick answer. They don't have any! Which makes sense given their pretty ghastly name, too. I figured it out as I stood there, knees buckling and teeth chattering, with poor Pika fighting his instincts to run for the hills and never come down. Believe me, you don't know fear until you know three Unseen with nothing between you and them.

"Samantha, you're fine."

I recognized Conner's voice from upstairs. The window had blown out during the battle between the other Unseen and Hammo, so Conner must have just flown right in with Staravia. He bounded off his mighty Pokemon's back and into the ruined classroom, first dashing to Henry's side, then finally to the hole. I had never seen fear or worry on Conner's stoic face, and he didn't break that trend now.

"Just walk past them. You can do it."

I must have laughed; I felt my vocal chords bounce but heard nothing over the ringing in my ears. Maybe that was my heartbeat.

My brain trusted Conner, but my feet had common sense. I didn't budge an inch.

"They don't have eyes," Conner urged. "That's why I call them the Unseen. They rely on extrasensory perceptions. Hearing, feeling, smell. The rubble is blocking out half of that, you'll be able to walk right past them."

"Right," I laughed. "How much of that is a theory, again?"

I looked up when Conner fell silent. He had taken his glasses off and started rubbing his temples.

"Sorry to annoy you with my rational fear of death—"

"Stop spending time with Amber, please? We don't need two of her. Now," Conner put his glasses back into place and slid them with his index finger. "I have to get these kids out of here, Henry too."

Another boy, this one built like an adult and with a fancy haircut, cut in. "Who do you think you are, calling us 'kids', little man?"

Conner just held a hand up at him.

Sometimes, I kind of like my new friends.

"I won't look away until you start moving, but it has to be now," he went on. "There are two girls on the other side of the building, room 114. If you get them outside, I'll see you from above. You can do this."

Then, in the gentle tone I didn't deserve: "You can _do_ this."

He wasn't Henry, because I didn't just feel rainbows when he talked me through something. And he wasn't Amber, because he had faith in me to begin with. But he cared anyway, in his own way, and I think you have to walk past three hopefully-blind abominations to really get that.

"Come on, Pika," I urged him. "One foot, then another.

"One foot, in front of the other," I sang.

My heartbeat slowed. Now my lame sneakers decided to be the drumming echo in my mind.

"Left…Left…Left, right, left…"

I made it past the first one without incident. The beast remained frozen as I glided inches from his arm. If I touched it just the tiniest bit, the Unseen would "see" me, and that would be the end of our story.

I got past the first Unseen, but the second and third were crammed into the barely-widened space, such that I had to drop to my knees and crawl between their arms. I saw their hands up-close for the first time, and was unsurprised. Sure, fingernails sharp like knives and jagged along the edges were to be expected. Same went for the fingers that ended in sharp points but curved under the nails, so the whole fingertip became this two-pronged gouging machine. Yeah, simple enough.

…If there was ever a time to ask 'why, me?'

I finished crawling between them and was back by the school entrance. I kept my body low to the ground, not daring to stand up until I was all the way across the lobby and on the other side of the building. Almost there. Almost—

Pika screamed.

No, really. Pika _screamed_.

I flipped up and over, landing on my feet and not knowing where to watch. One moment, Pika is racing past my feet so quickly that I felt a warm breeze against my leg; in the next, the three Unseen are moving like machines, jamming their arms into the ceiling to push them along. Which, unlike the other times, made them fast.

They were at me in seconds. Jaws open—

Blue lightning hit it square in the pink tongue, and down the arms came, fingernails grinding and slicing through the lockers like knives through warm butter. The tumble bought me time as the Unseen fell like dominoes, the last one falling back into the rubble pile and blinding itself again.

I saw my chance. So what if I couldn't feel anything below my hip? I was moving.

Pika shot alongside me with an arrow's precision, a straight-flying yellow blur.

"Thanks for coming back," I said snidely. I took the tweak of his ear to represent some annoyed reply.

We reached the end of the hall and turned on a hard right. My shoes skidded along the tile, squeaking and screaming and telling the Unseen 'hey, I'm here, come eat me!'

This was yet another generic hallway, with lockers on each side and doors with that fancy opaque glass window. My lungs had finally caught up with the adrenaline, and my entire chest burned. I couldn't focus on it; I had to make sure we didn't miss the room. Henry was not getting airlifted out of a war zone just so that I could miss a few numbers on a door—

"114! Got it!"

Pika responded in the best possible way: by jumping ahead of me, charging his cheeks in mid-air, and throwing himself at the door so it splintered apart from the energy. There's science in there somewhere. That's probably what made it cool, save for the splinters in my hair.

I wasn't in the room yet and Pika already had an enemy. Desks flew at him from several feet up, crashing at an angle with enough force that the metal broke in two. Pika weaved through the academia-tools-turned-projectile and charged for another hit. Awaiting orders—

"Thunderbolt!"

The blast connected with the Unseen, and props to Pika for seeing it before I did. The beast had both girls in its grasp and its salivating mouth ready. Unlucky us—the Unseen knew to snap its jaw shut before the beam hit home. The Unseen jittered slightly, just enough to make it drop the girls and stagger against the whiteboard.

But now it was mad. And Pika knew it.

Its arm defied the human eyeball: in one moment it hovered and waited for an opening, and in the next, it crashed through the wall and Pika was flying outside, skidding along the asphalt and ending on his back.

Seeing someone hurt is one thing. Seeing them struggling to get up, but not even being able to turn over and the harder it tries, the more red fluid stains the ground underneath, that's something else.

"Pika!" Then, running to him: "Pika, get up! He's coming!"

If I could make it to him and give a Hyper Potion, there could be a round two. But damn if I don't have the porkiest legs and the lamest lungs on the planet! The Unseen grabbed me from behind and whipped my body back toward him.

Have you ever _heard_ your ribs crack?

Neither did I! I was too busy screaming from the searing, eyeball-splitting pain of it. The demon lifted me into the air and stared at me. It's creepy now, too: he "stared" by feeling me, hearing my pain, and smelling my body. The girls huddled in a far corner, eyes shut and sobbing. I think one of them was praying..?

"Hands off! Solarbeam!"

Lime-green energy hit the Unseen's elbow, forcing his fingers open and letting my body flop onto the tile. Flames spread through my chest, worst than I ever imagined, as though the shards of my ribcage were stabbing my guts.

Elegant, ain't it?

Lili bounced between the desks and fallen support beams and to the arena. It hadn't been a good day for her and Amber either, judging from the bruises and burns along Lili's body.

"Stay down," I heard Amber say. "I'm on this."

A burst of wind from Staravia's powerful wings crashed through the room. The Unseen stumbled and steadied itself by planting its arms into the walls. Confident, but shaken.

"Conner! I'm trying to work here!"

"Samantha's Pikachu," Conner said fast. "It can't breathe. I don't think it's moving. Do you have any potions?"

"No, they're all in Sam's bag—"

The Unseen made its move. Three arms came down on Lili with megaton force.

"For the love of….Frenzy Plant, block maneuver!"

Ancient roots sprung up from the blasted ground and spread out, blocking the arms from connecting. The wood splintered and shattered, but Lili had her opening.

"Magical Leaf! Go!"

As much as I would have loved to stay and watch, Pika needed me. If _I _got thwacked through a wall and couldn't get up, the reason would be pretty obvious. But it happened to Pika, and plus or minus a rib lost, I was okay. The only reason I was still alive was because Pika and I weren't bonded, and that was my decision, not his.

So, I made a decision. I stood up.

When I screamed like bloody murder, both the Unseen and Lili jumped slightly. I saw Amber at the hole near the asphalt, and Conner farther back as Staravia battled another opponent.

"New girl! Stay down!" Amber yelled, before wincing and buckling at the knees. I couldn't look back to see the fight, I had to keep moving. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other.

…Yeah, no. Two footsteps in and I was on my front, my vision clouding from pain so magnificent, it spread through my every nerve like electricity.

Then, when you think it can't get worse? Amber starts choking.

The Unseen had Lili around the throat with one arm, lifted her several feet up, and punched her body with another arm. Lili's body rocked back and forth, each time almost coming to a standstill before being throttled again. Not only could Amber not scream to Conner for help, she couldn't find the strength to stand. This was a pretty sight, for sure. Sam and Amber, incapacitated and in considerable agony.

"I thought you were on this?"

Enter Hammo the Heroic Tepig, in full fighting form! With a certain Henry, and behind him, a restored Pika.

"You guys know what to do," Henry said confidently. "Hammo, flamethrower!"

Pika and Hammo took to business. Hammo's blaze of orange fire singed the Unseen's grasp. Lili plummeted to Henry's open arms. He ran out of the arena as fast as his legs would carry.

Then Henry filled my vision.

"I'm sorry about this," he said, reaching for my bag. "And no, I'm not saying that because you said it. Jokes aren't funny when you've got broken bones."

I had the wonderful luxury of laying right on top of the bag. He would have to move me to get to it.

"On three?" He nodded. One, two—

Huh, no pain.

I reached to my ribs…Wait, there it was. Touching my body still felt like pressing the 'torture' button on my imaginary cage, but not nearly as awful.

The surprise on Henry's face was less than encouraging. He asked slowly: "You never used your Celebi Ball…right?"

"Scout's honor," I said, my voice like sandpaper.

"But you healed when Pika…Not now," He shook it off. Henry delved into my bag and found another Hyper Potion, then rushed to the broken Lili beside us. The boy had amazing powers of concentration, to avoid being distracted by the Unseen battle roughly two feet away. Hammo and Pika zipped and swiped at the behemoth, bringing it down one cut at a time.

Hammo and Pika regrouped at the broken doorway. I knew Pika well enough to know he had been charging an attack, and watching him next to a glowing Hammo, I figured that's where he learned the move from.

Henry tossed the empty Hyper Potion and stood, valiant. "Guys, now!"

Hammo's Solarbeam technique launched from his small mouth with the force of a warhead. Pika's Thunderbolt strike wrapped around it in a blue ribbon, and when both attacks hit the Unseen's already wounded body, the battle was done. It sank back to its own world, and we had…oh, a good ten seconds before we could expect another attack. Oh, life. You big joker, you.

The bond did its job fast. A restored Amber rose to her feet and ran to the girls hiding in the corner. She didn't wait for them to whine or cry or do other prisoner-of-war-y things. Amber grabbed them both by the wrists and dragged them outside, where Conner helped them onto Staravia's back. I didn't ask who was watching the other kids at the front of the school, but then I realized: if someone saved me from a hell beast and told me to stand still someplace, I'd do it.

I watched through the gaping crater in the wall: the world lost its greenish hue. Clouds returned, a breeze wafted through the air, and soon enough, the familiar sound of cars on the road echoed around us.

Henry stood over me and extended a hand. I took it and bent to my feet.

"Looks like a Mission Clear," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"Well…I'll put it this way. Does your dad's store sell replacement lungs?"

He laughed. "Nothing's broken anymore, you said. I'll hold you to that."

"Don't worry, I don't plan on being an Unseen's yo-yo again anytime soon."

We went silent then. I don't think we had to bring up how I was somehow miraculously un-hurt despite not having a bond, how a bunch of kids were suddenly sensitive out of nowhere, or how much stronger these Unseen were…Or how Henry couldn't bring his own healing items from the store for reasons undisclosed but obvious…Or how Henry saved my life, and probably Amber's and Conner's in the process.

I returned his laughter with the sweetest smile I could manage. Because sometimes, I think I can manage.

"Thank you," I said.

…

This one's about two, three months back.

I had just gotten home from school. The worst part of it was the lie I walked in with, the one I had held to my chest and cried myself asleep with for the last four years.

See, when middle school blows, every adult can relate to it. It's a time nobody ever wants to return to. We block out memories of being bullied, of being laughed at for liking someone and telling them, of having teachers scream at you and tell you to take it like an adult who somehow has it in them to scream at children. There's a joke in my creative writing class that nobody writes books about middle school, because it's be tough to top the Book of Revelations. The bright light at the end of the tunnel? That's high school.

Because in high school, life is _amazing_. Your curves will come in, your face will lose all of that baby fat, you'll have tons of girlfriends, boys will throw themselves at you, and there will be heinous parties to remember for the ages. Everybody loves high school. College is optional, but that's okay because high school is rightfully called The Last Hurrah.

…Then reality hits, and freshman year is lame. You've made a few friends, sure. Cold, gray, useless friends to match the cold, gray uselessness of the buildings and assignments and teachers. The teachers stopped screaming at children, and now just don't care at the fundamental level. The boys went from scrawny and boy-ish to suddenly chiseled and manly overnight when you _didn't_ become a woman overnight, so good luck in that department. And as for girlfriends…

I met this girl named Brenna in my homeroom class. She was like me: Brenna kept to herself, didn't raise her hand, and snacked on Cheetos from her backpack. I asked her at lunchtime if she wanted to share a cake I brought from home.

She looked at me once, for a fleeting moment, and I'll never forget her response:

"I only eat pie."

So, there that went. Sophomore year was looking to be exactly the same, barring the whole Hannelore-less Household. She had been gone awhile by now, and as much as I hate to say it, things started to feel okay. I took over Hannelore's chores, which meant I was doing _every _chore. That argument ended with some pretty choice quotes ("I will _never_ wash a dish, Samantha") and ultimately another day telling Ms. Oliver I bumped my head into the dresser. Even then, there was a routine.

Perhaps I didn't appreciate routines until I lived with Hannelore.

Or perhaps that's the Boss-inspired Stockholm Syndrome talking.

Anyway.

I came home that day from tenth grade feeling just, entirely done with high school. I didn't turn in a project, and instead of getting yelled at and given a few complexes for my adult life ("This really shows me who _you_ are," said Ms. Yoon to eleven-year-old me), the teacher just shrugged and kept on trucking. And if the teacher didn't care that I didn't care, then really nobody cared, and that's just life.

Nobody cares.

I spent a good two hours doing housework, which was a new record. Then it was over to the answering machine to delete calls home from teachers, and finally to my bedroom.

I was on my floor, reading one of Hannelore's old paperbacks, when the Boss came home. The door slammed, which was normal.

He shouted if I ran the dishwasher, with more than a few profanities I'd prefer not to reproduce.

Before I could answer, the phone rang and the Boss picked it up. My heart skipped a beat, but then again, this was high school. In middle school, teachers who called home actually wanted to discuss things, not just level empty threats that can be neutralized with a press of the answering machine 'erase' button. There would be no second call in one day.

Our house was set up so that the stairs led right into the living room, and my bedroom was at the top of those stairs. I heard everything, like it or not.

The Boss sighed. "Damnit, you call me it home for this? I just got off work, that jackass Kenny can't tell the briefs on his desk from the ones on his balls, and you really think I care about what she told you?

"Look, Mom. She's not my problem. She's not my daughter, and if…Am I supposed to? She made her choice, I told her…You're not listening to me. I _told_ you what she said. The bitch can't shut her mouth, and that's what happened."

I froze.

"No," he shouted abruptly. I heard a cabinet open, followed by a glass on the table. Drinkin' time in the Hutchinson House. "No, you're…You're not listening. You don't want to hear me, Ma.

"No, you know what? Fine. Believe what you want to believe. Samantha would never say those things about me, she's the good one…The hell do I care about that?" Then: "Yeah, her teacher stopped calling…No, Sam's doing fine, and she's not stupid, she knows what'll happen if she doesn't."

There was a thirty-second calm before the storm.

I told you the Boss has a habit of breaking things, right? When I found the glass in the morning, it looked like he slammed it on the table at terminal velocity; I prefer to pretend it just imploded with his patience.

"I am _not_ a bad man," he bellowed. "That girl is an ingrate. Hear me? She's an _ingrate_. Put a roof over her head and she'll ask for the biggest room. Put food in her mouth and she'll ask to eat off the bloody china. Damnit!" Then: "_Samantha!_

"I told her to clean this up this _morning_," he drawled into the phone. "_Samantha! _Get your fat ass down here!"

In retrospect, making friends with Lucy wasn't what got me from that hellmouth to here with Hannelore.

That was all getting me in the frame of mind. Not doing homework, not _caring_ about it, not _caring_ about what people thought of me and being able to go through the motions with so little emotion, it got me to this moment right here.

The moment where I put a bookmark in Hannelore's paperback, crawled into the small space in my closet under the dresses I no longer fit and the shoes I never wore, closed the door, and went back to reading.

In that moment, I realized that if I didn't have to do my homework or make friends, then I didn't have to cower under the Boss, either.

I learned to defy.

…No, this isn't one of those stories where the Boss finds me, drags me out, and it just gets bad all over. Though he did storm around downstairs for ten minutes, come up, and bless grandma's heart, she got him angry enough to send him back downstairs for a refill. I peeled him off the recliner and into bed around midnight, when he was too drunk to care that I wasn't in bed.

The next morning, I made him breakfast and cleaned up the mess. We ate in our usual semi-amicable silence.

He only had this to say: "Grandma says 'hi'."

…

"Hannelore, I have a question."

"Shoot," she shrugged.

"Have you tried to find your real dad?"

We're back in the present, and it's the night after the Trainer School Showdown, as I'd like to remember it.

Nothing eventful happened on the way back home. I mean, it was the first time the four of us rode on the train together, and we kind of felt like a team and maybe I had a group of people I could call my friends, seeing as how I knew them as a group but also as individuals, and they knew me, and…

Anyway. Pika crawled into my bed, and I didn't fight him on it. I sat in my pajamas and binged on snacks and reality food for what felt like an eternity, and then Hannelore came home. She had prettied herself up, which is the equivalent of polishing a diamond if you ask me, and I waited until she came out of her room in boyshorts and a top to drop the question.

I don't know if she was planning to bake beforehand, but she was now.

"I haven't thought about it," she said, keeping her voice level and failing at the last syllable. She flailed for her ingredients, knocking over the salt and pepper in her haste. "Besides, I have so much to do these days. I have my own life now, after all. Mr. McCall says that if we are to forget the mistakes of our fathers, we need to accept that the past cannot be fixed and that the future is yet to be broken—"

"Hannelore—"

"And I mean, really. My real dad has to know what kind of a jerk mom took up with. He could have gotten me out of there at any time. Don't get me wrong, I love that we got to be close, but really, there are some things that my real dad _could_ have kept me from—"

"Hannelore, wait."

"If you ask me, Sam? Your dad is my dad is _our_ dad, and I know you hate him and I know I _should_ hate him, but at least he was around until I was eighteen, which is more than I can say for—"

"Hannelore, you're going to burn the building down! Stop."

I should mention that I had just snatched the cooking spray out of her hands. She had turned on the kitchen burners, taken down her ingredients—flour, pepperoni, and a can of sardines?—and had forgotten to take a pan out.

She took three deep breaths, and on the last one, she slouched her body forward. She leaned on me, head on my shoulder.

"You smell like garbage and dust," she laughed.

"Don't look at me. Your nose is in Pika's seat."

I sat at one of the table chairs, and Hannelore set out to cook again, for real this time.

There were a few minutes of reality-TV white noise. Hannelore broke the silence. "Are you getting homesick yet?"

I laughed, then threw up in my mouth a little bit.

"Ouch, fine! I'm wrong, Saffron can burn to the ground," Hannelore conceded.

"Why would I _ever_ miss that place?"

"You were asking about dads, so…"

I saw the exact moment where she clued in that the question was not entirely about her. Her eyebrows shot up, along with everything else, like she had been hit with Pika's Thundershock.

I had to cut her off. "Please, don't say it—"

"This is about your not-boyfriend, isn't it!"

I ran a hand down my face. "I told you not to say it…"

She stirred chocolate chips into her batter, arms on autopilot and head turned my way. "What's his name?"

"Nunya Business."

"He's not anybody I know, if that's what you're worried about. I don't know any teenagers besides you, and especially not any cute boy teenagers."

"How do _you_ know he's cute?"

"Because you just told me."

I paused. "No, I didn't. You just said that because you saw it on TV."

"See, now I _know_ he's cute because you're defending your defense of the obvious, being his cuteness."

Great, that's what I needed. An aneurysm brought on by avoiding my sister.

But…I had thought a lot on the walk home. Lucky for me, Conner got off at the stop by the Village. Pika slept in my shirt again, this time from plain ole' exhaustion rather than scumbag winter-y frost. Like usual, I wandered into thoughts about the Boss and Lucy and Hannelore and mom and secrets you aren't supposed to learn during fights…

"His family…Okay, preface?"

Hannelore played along. "Preface."

"Preface with: I only saw the man once."

"Sam, if he's older than you by half your age plus seven, then he's too old, period."

"Not him! His dad," I clarified. "His dad seemed like…Well, he was kind of prone to yelling."

"Uh-huh." Hannelore had finished her batter. She turned the stove on and started rolling balls of cookie dough onto the baking pan. "Mind if I cut you off right there? Dads are allowed to be angry sometimes, just like moms and sisters and friends. We aren't in any position to judge other families from the outside. That's my take, anyway."

I understood that bit. I knew about Lucy's problems, but I never had the right to judge, or vice versa. It's hard to judge someone at rock-bottom when you're at rock-bottom, too.

"I mean," Hannelore backtracked. "Did he say anything to you?"

"Not to me," I said. After a slight pause: "He told a friend."

"That friend had no right to tell you," Hannelore said. I swear I caught a hint of sternness. "This boy is entitled to his privacy, Sam."

"I'm not being nosy, I'm just not explaining it right," I groaned.

Hannelore put the pan in the stove, then sat beside me and folded her legs up. She placed a bowl of unused chocolate chips between us. "Then start from the beginning," she said.

"The beginning. Right."

"What's this boy's name?" Hannelore sighed.

"If I'm just boring you, then forget it."

"You're not boring me." The Hannelore Charm was back at full-blast. "I just pretended I lived in a fictional world where my baby sister wouldn't have boy problems. Those days are dead and buried." Then: "Come on, eat chocolate. What's his name?"

"Henry." My voice kicked.

"Henry. How'd you two meet? Come on, give me the story. Start to finish."

Ha!

"The whole story? It's kind of long…"

"I've got time. I don't have to be in at work for another eleven hours."

Stupid adulthood and its stupid efficient time management skills. I tried to think of a way out, but Hannelore's gaze never wavered. And if I made up any _bogus_ lie, she would know it.

That said, there is a grand difference between lying and omitting certain truths.

I took a deep breath and began the sordid not-tale of Samantha and Henry. Luckily, both the sanitized Hannelore Story and the Real Story had the same start: "So that first day I came to Goldenrod, you weren't home."

"I remember," Hannelore said. "I had to work overnight, and I forgot to leave you a key."

Hannelore did her apology sigh, but I was over it. I kept on trucking. "Right. So, I went to the Village. That's where I met Pika, actually."

"Oh?"

"Right. He ran out of an alley…"

…And the sky went all green-like, and then the aliens showed up.

"…And he knocked over some guy's coffee, and he was really mad, right? And the manager came out of nowhere and started shouting in some language I didn't understand, like, Sevii or something. He was shouting at Pika and started demanding if it was a stray. Cops showed up, and you should've seen Pika's face, he was horrified! I told a white lie and said he was mine."

…Pika and I ran for our lives, and eventually we were rescued by Conner and Amber.

"That's how I met my other friends, Amber and Conner. They were at the other table, they saw the whole thing. The manager didn't believe me, but Amber was all, 'that's her Pikachu, old dude!' and Conner pushed up his glasses and went like, 'I do not believe you are required for this situation'."

I'd like my Oscar now.

"That's all fine," Hannelore said. "Where's the guy show up?"

…Pika and I were cornered, and Henry showed up and rescued me.

"Well, the manager wanted to see some proof that Pika lived with me. I couldn't even show him my passport! I was afraid I'd get you in trouble."

Hannelore nodded. Bonus points for feigning responsibility!

"That's when Henry showed up. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me to be still, and then he took care of everything."

"Everything," Hannelore repeated. "What did he do, knock out this menacing manager character?"

…He and his Tepig battled a ten-foot abomination.

"Henry's so sweet. He just offered to pay for the damages. The manager-guy almost didn't let him do it, since he was out for blood and carnage and whatnot, but Henry was so sorry about causing a mess. Then Conner and Amber—they're his friends—they offered to help pay, and manager-guy was on the spot, and then he just let the whole thing slide."

"Letting you walk home with a new posse and your own Pikachu before even coming home," Hannelore mused. "Well played, baby sister."

Now, I _think_ she believed me. It's easy to fool angry educators and adults that honestly don't care, but tricking somebody who honestly cares about your wellbeing is a challenge. It's also dishonest and wrong.

Though if you ask me, bringing her into the world of Twilights, Unseen, Celebi Balls and a ton of other capital-letter words was the more heartless alternative. The last thing I needed was Hannelore worrying every time I'm not home at four PM.

With the grand faux-introduction completed, I was able to tell the rest of the story without too many edits. Henry and I hung out by ourselves, and he slowly introduced me to his friends. Conner was kind of standoffish at first, and Amber was just another mean girl. Two days later, Amber and I had that conversation at lunch and I think I understand her more than I understand myself. Conner likes me, but I never had the balls to deal with it…

"Amber, that's the one who told you Henry's having family problems?" Hannelore clarified.

"Yep."

"She was worried because he didn't text you first?"

I nodded.

Hannelore threw her head back. The timer blared for the cookies. She reached over and turned both the timer and the oven off without looking, then bent back forward.

"Sam, boys are complicated."

"I _know—"_

"No, you don't," she said, suddenly all serious-like. "You're only fifteen. You've never had a friend who's a boy, even."

She stopped and gathered her thoughts. "Preface? I don't want to make you feel like you haven't done anything, or to make your experiences meaningless. You know who you are, Sam. That's one of the things I love about you."

"Okay." I went along with that lie.

"The thing is, boys are different. They don't ask for help, and when they do, they only go to people who won't judge them."

I knew where this was going. "I would never—"

"Of course you wouldn't, because you know what it's like to be judged. Does Henry know that?"

I thought for a second. "No," I said honestly.

"Exactly. He thinks you won't understand him, so he's not telling you anything. He's afraid you'll judge him." Then: "Sam, if there's something going on in Henry's life, he'll talk to you about it when he feels like he can. All we can do for others in this world is be there when they need us."

Cue the Hannelore Smile.

…Cue both of our cell phones ringing at the exact same time. If I were the fly on the wall, I'd get a laugh out of how fast Hannelore and I fumbled over each other, knocking over the bowl of chocolate chips and almost crashing into the couch to grab our devices. I feel like there's a metaphor for humans and reluctance on technology somewhere in that.

I found my phone buried under the sofa cushion, where I'd parked my rear for most of the day. Unknown number.

"Hullo?"

"Samantha, it's Conner. Are you available?"

Uh…what?

"I'm downstairs," he continued. "Just outside your building. Are you free to talk? There's something we need to discuss, and I'm not sure my room is capable at present."

I glanced over the couch for Hannelore. She retreated into her bedroom and closed the door. Sister bonding time had officially ended.

"I'll be right there," I said. He hung up before I got to ask how he found my address.

Then I remembered: "research."

I threw on sweat pants and an unwashed hoodie. I went down to the lobby and found Conner leaning against the wall outside. Wind howled when I pushed the door open. My hair went flying.

He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and stared out into the street. "I apologize for bringing this to you so late, but it's urgent."

"Okay."

"It's far from okay. I believe I may have solved this puzzle of our mission, but before that can be, I need your help."

"My help." I jabbed a mock finger at my chest.

"Not exactly…yours," he slowed. "This is about your sister, Hannelore. I believe she works for a company that is manufacturing the Twilights."

* * *

Thanks for reading, thanks a bunch-ton more for reviewing.


	10. Do you believe me now?

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

- "Do you believe me now?"

"Manufacturing Twilights," I repeated. It didn't sit right on my tongue. "I thought they happened according to that list of dates, or whatever." I censored myself. "Is it really okay for you to be out here? It's cold. Come on upstairs."

"As much as I would appreciate going inside a girl's home, I fear your apartment might be more dangerous than my dwelling. Amber might be the safest of us all."

I didn't ask about Amber, and he didn't tell.

The violent wind shot through my clothes. It was a bucket of ice water to the face. "Well, what is it?" I folded my arms and rubbed them. "Why were you researching Hannelore?"

"I wasn't going to, at first." He shivered, then continued undeterred. "I was researching you."

I let his shrug go unanalyzed.

"Meanwhile, I had tried a new tactic for my prototype.

"The Celebi Balls house their own form of Twilights. They house an ecosystem capable of sustaining multireality contexts. Perhaps if I could reverse the prototype's sustainment system, I could turn the device into a kind of antennae, one that detects energy of its type.

"I expected Amber and Henry's locations, as well as yours and mine, to appear on my Goldenrod map.

"Finding the entire downtown district of Goldenrod City lit up in energy…that wasn't a part of it."

"What's this have to do with my sister?"

"I'm getting to that," Conner said. He removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses on his jacket sleeve. "Before the Twilight today, I decided to do some reconnaissance of my own. I'll drop the pretention that you are oblivious to Amber's political power; after knowing that the Johto Prime Minister had a stake in this town, I made the simple connection that our government was linked to the Twilight energy.

"The organization working with that energy would be somewhere downtown, but I had to search it out. It was child's play once I gave it thought. The Goldenrod branch of this government project would only have opened for the last few months. Just long enough for the Twilight incidents to begin.

"I found one office that opened within the last year. Imagine my surprise when Hannelore Hutchinson is one of the newer hires."

He stopped talking, in that way people do when they think the other person can make the logic gap on their own. That snooty, condescending, 'I bite my thumb at you, sir' way. If he wanted to play that game, I was fine with standing there all night.

Conner finally gave in and continued the story. "I decided to follow her to work."

"You _what_?!"

"As I expected, she works in a downtown office. This leads me to believe that your finding a Celebi Ball was no more an element of chance than it was mine or Amber's involvement."

I made an effort to keep my jaw from hanging open.

"The situation is surprising to me as well," Conner said.

"No, that other stuff makes no sense. I'm still hung up on how you stalked my sister." Then, a little too loud: "Where do you get off, thinking you can just _follow_ people?"

"If such actions promote the survival of my family, then I will take those actions."

I had another attack at Conner's steadily-increasing creep factor, but the train left the thought station without me.

"Your family?" I asked.

"I think of you as family," Conner said. "Henry and Amber as well. I told you before: we were not given the luxury of choosing this company. We are in this together, like it or not, and I intend for us to get out of this situation in the same fashion. Fighting Unseen will not be our life story, Samantha. I guarantee it."

There was no way out, now. He brought it up, so one of us had to close it. And I figured, Conner had already used his word count for the day.

"I'm sorry," I started.

Conner's eyebrows shot up. "Whatever for? If you mean today, my plan was obviously flawed—"

"For how I acted," I clarified. "When you said you wanted to be friends. You wanted to get to know me."

Conner's lips parted, then sealed. Let the girl monologue.

"I…I don't have a lot of friends," I mumbled. "And you'll think this is stupid, but I thought maybe you _liked_ me or something…"

"Samantha, no," he sang. He took a few tentative steps toward me, then put his hands on my shoulders. "I would never put you in that position." Then, laughing: "Asking you to my very private room, closing the steel door and then professing love for you…I believe that crosses a line."

I smiled, maybe a little too sincerely.

"If my intentions were misconstrued in any way," Conner said, "Then this is my full apology."

Wait a minute. "Why are _you_ apologizing? You didn't do anything wrong. I was a complete jerk to you—"

"You said you're not used to having friends," Conner interrupted. He added, looking through me: "Let's call that a familiar story."

He removed his hands, turned tail, and started for the sidewalk. He glanced back at me next, as if he had forgotten to say goodbye, or something similarly trivial.

"Look through your sister's files. You'll find information on Unit 00 and Unit 01."

"I can't do that," I said automatically. We're sisters, but we didn't share everything. "Family boundary."

Conner waited for a moment—probably wondering if he could suggest "researching" as a family tactic—and then he was gone.

I was only halfway through the lobby when I started considering how to find Hannelore's paperwork.

It's not like I _lied_ to Conner. I never wanted to go through Hannelore's things, especially not after she tries so hard to stay involved in the deadly nightmare known as my life. Conner had some good points: like it or not, Hannelore is involved in the same thing I'm involved in. Heck, she might even be further involved than I am, being the day-to-day worker to my part-time-super-heroine. But if I had admitted my intentions, Conner would expect that of me, and if I was going to break a rule in my sister's home, it had better be on my watch, and nobody else's.

I felt sick to my stomach.

How could I explain this to Hannelore?

I had lied, cheated, and stolen my way through middle school and significant part of high school. It was how I survived the Boss, which if you ask me is like surviving hell by stealing from Satan.

Lying to Hannelore and going through her things…I couldn't even think of a quippy metaphor. It was wrong.

But if Hannelore knew something that could end the Twilights, wouldn't I be keeping her in danger by _not_ finding out what she knew?

…What if I let this pass me by, and she became sensitive?

What if I put her in harm's way by respecting her boundaries?

_No_, I told myself. No. That's what the Boss and your teachers think. They think you're dumb enough to not know what's good for you, and that you don't have the right to be your own person. It's why they threw things and sent home parent forms after spending entire lectures screaming at you in front of the class. If you stoop to that level, you're no better than they are.

…But could I forgive myself if I was wrong?

"Why the long face?" Hannelore beamed when I stepped inside the apartment. "Cookies are done! I even stuffed them with coconut, just the way you like them."

I went straight to my room and shut the door.

…

"Sam?"

I pulled the comforter up over my head.

"Sam!"

I reached for a pillow and tried pulling it over my head. A touch of fuzz and sharp electric current told me I wasn't groping a pillow, though.

"_Sam_," Hannelore groaned. She knocked once, then opened the door. I saw her through my groggy eyelids. Work-Clothes Hannelore had on heels, a black dress, and one of those jackets with fancy shoulders. Red lipstick threatened to scar my retinas. "I'm leaving for work, but your phone's been ringing all morning."

"Scumbag phone," I drawled.

Hannelore started to close the door, then thought twice. "Did that boy say anything to you last night?" She asked with motherly concern.

Samantha A: Well, he did tell me you're working for a conspiracy group. Though with a name like the Company, I should have seen it coming.

Samantha B: "Conner? He just needed bus money last night. He was lost." Or some other lie. It's what I do. I lie.

"Conner? Oh, right, _Henry_'s the one you like," Hannelore mused. "I was just wondering. He's been calling you for hours."

"Henry?"

"Yup." Then, catching me on my rocket flight from bedroom to living room: "You remember what I said about this, right?"

"Yes, _Mom_. Give him space, he doesn't know me, yadda yadda."

Hannelore smirked. "I meant no getting pregnant, but that works, too."

My cell phone vibrated on the middle sofa cushion. I dived into the couch like Scrooge McDuck into the money vault.

"Henry! Sorry, I didn't have my phone with me." And the award goes to Sam Hutchinson for removing the sleep from her voice in 0.4 seconds.

"I'm not bothering you, am I? I know it's early."

Not even a 'good morning' or a cheery text, or a message about fighting aliens tonight.

Something's up.

"No, it's fine. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, everything's…no, actually, it's not okay at all. I kind of spent the night at Amber's hostel." And the way he said it, you'd think he were admitting to first-degree murder. "I wanted to talk to you about something. You don't have anything going on right now, do you?"

Henry's so silly. He acts like I have a life.

Not like within half an hour, I could be showered, dressed, and on the train toward South Entrance, with Pika riding shoulder-side.

"Quit complaining," I snapped when Pika yawned at me. "You've got morning breath too, pal. Save that weapon for the Unseen."

Henry had said for me to walk along the Goldenrod City gates, following the boutiques and cafes for a few blocks until I came to the end.

"The end of…what?" I asked before leaving.

"Don't laugh? It's my quiet place," he admitted. "But trust me, you'll know it when you see it."

And believe me, I did.

Now, minor segue. I don't think I really had a quiet place back in Saffron.

Sure, I could ride the monorail as much as I wanted, but that cost money, which meant dipping into the Cheetos fund. And I suppose _all_ of Saffron was technically my quiet place, when you consider how often I just up and walked out of school.

When I said the faculty stopped caring, I really meant it.

I had the entire city, the monorail, and even my closet, but nothing was as gorgeous as the edge of Goldenrod City. The street became a dirt road, and soon even that was gone, and Pika and I stood in a sloping grass plain. Ilex Forest flourished off in the distance. The morning sky, clear of clouds or smog or stars, was a teal blanket over the world. Further down the plain sloped, dropping off into patches of short and tall grass that were virtually untouched by humans.

Henry sat right where the slope plateaued, before descending at a harsh angle again. I stumbled down the grass plains to meet him, Pika waddling alongside. He hadn't seen me yet; his gaze remained trained on the horizon, where the green of the earth and the teal of the sky became one. Henry's white beanie cap lay on the grass, with Hammo's Celebi ball resting on the hat and shining bright.

"Hey," I said.

Henry snapped out of his inner monologue. He brushed hair out of his eyes and smiled my way. "You found it," he said. Then, spreading his arms out: "What do you think?"

"It's beautiful," I said. "How did you find this place?"

"Dad brought me out this way once to pick up a shipment," Henry said. "He said we were in a hurry, but it wasn't. Not really; he didn't want to leave the assistant managers alone long enough to manage themselves. He's got this theory where the world burns down without his micromanagement.

"Come on, sit down," he interrupted his story. "I mean, unless you like blasting your calves, standing there like that."

Thankfully, I managed to not stumble toward a grassy demise. I carefully waddled over to Henry and sat down beside him. Pika elected to stay on the slope, flopping himself down and enjoying the opportunity to nap.

"If he keeps sleeping like that, I'll cut him off the ketchup tap," I said jokingly.

"Don't call Pika lazy. He does fight supervillains."

"Good point." I smiled. "Come on, back to storytime. You said you dad didn't want to stop…"

"…Yeah, he didn't. But lucky me, the guy we're meeting decides to bungle his paperwork. My dad just goes off. And I'm there for a good twenty minutes, just chewing the scenery. This spot caught my eye, so that night after work, I came back. It's been the quiet place for a few months now."

"Huh." I nodded. "Not bad." Then, to keep the conversation from flatlining: "Your dad doesn't sound like the happiest guy in the world."

"Nah, not really," Henry agreed. "He needs to get some hobbies. I think if he just put himself into something that wasn't the store—

"Ah, God. I'm doing it again. Sorry." Then: "I'm supposed to be asking about you."

"Why me? I'm boring."

"True, but a red-ribboned friend tells me you've got more to you than you let on."

I pulled my elbows toward my chest. "What did Amber tell you?" Note that I asked her to say _nothing_.

"Nothing, actually. She just said you're a good listener."

"Oh," I said, sounding genuinely surprised. Then: "Did you need me to listen? Want me to lend you an ear?" I feigned a smile.

"Nah, it's just…Okay, bear with me, Sam. I have this theory that people who are good listeners have been through some serious stuff."

"How so?"

"Well, it's like that saying people have? The kindest people have experienced the meanest, and the happiest people were once the saddest."

"I've never heard that before," I said. It was the truth. Kanto sayings tend to rhyme, for starters.

Henry shrugged. "I'm an awful listener. It's why Amber can barely stand me."

"I can think of two things wrong with that statement."

He ignored me. "Sam, you listen to people. I didn't tell you I was all down and stuff because it wasn't your problem, and it still isn't."

Hannelore: 1, Sam: 0.

"But I didn't push you away because Amber turned me against you, or something stupid like that. I have this thing, where I don't like venting to people, because that kind of gives them ammunition."

"I know exactly what you mean," I said.

Henry snapped his fingers. "And _that's_ exactly what I meant when I figured you had some dramatic backstory."

We traded grins, and suddenly there was this unspoken game of Sad Angsty Teenager Chicken, where one of us would have to start saying dramatic monologue-y stuff first. Thankfully, Henry took the bait.

"So, if I tell you a secret, promise it'll stay a secret?"

I nodded. "As long as it's not premeditated murder, or anything."

"Sorry, Sam. I'm not that interesting."

He leaned against the slope and stared into the blue sky, and I was no longer there.

"I can't believe I'm saying this…" He bit his lip. "I think I'm glad that everything is happening."

"Everything," I repeated. "You don't mean the—"

"The Unseen, the Twilight and all of that? I do, Sam. I'm actually happy it happened.

"See, you're already doing better than Amber. She would have my head on a pike by now."

"I'm not going to attack you or anything," I said slowly. "But I don't understand…The Unseen have killed people. They destroyed an entire parallel reality context, or whatever you call it. If we screw up once, our world is over. What part of that was a _good_ thing?"

"That's it, Sam. There was literally one good thing to come of it."

…Sam C, how _dare_ you co-opt my body and have my cheeks flush. Sure, he dragged us out here to a quiet, pretty corner of the city, and _sure_, he's being all quiet and honest and showing that he trusts you, but that doesn't mean—

"I made a friend."

…Okay, maybe it's time to panic?

Heart, stop beating that fast, you'll give us all cardiac arrest.

Not you too, lungs. You can't lock up, I need you guys to live—

"I got to meet Hammo," he said. And like that, my body returned to normal function. What did I tell you? There's an alternate ending where Henry likes me, and this one isn't it.

"Amber told you about my dad, right? He hates Pokemon Trainers with a passion. It's like, palpable rage. I could probably bring you some Dad Rage in a Tupperware container.

"Like…Okay. My aunt is a Trainer, right? But she and dad had a falling out back when I was a kid. It was something stupid and small, but my dad has a thing where he thinks apologizing is a kind of weakness…?

"Anyway. My dad ran the family shop, but my aunt, she went to New Bark Town and tried her luck at being a Trainer. 'You'll never make it!' my dad said. He's always so dramatic. You know he once said the other managers are 'assassins' attempting to 'oust him from power'?

"Sheesh, I have a lot of tangents," Henry laughed.

"It just shows you're full of ideas," I said. "Keep going. What happened to your aunt? From the way this story's going, she probably turned out all right."

Henry laughed uncontrollably for the next ten seconds. He grabbed at his stomach and kicked his legs in the air, and I wasn't entire sure it was all for show.

"Sam, my aunt is Sinnoh Champion Cynthia."

"You're kidding."

"I tell awful jokes and smile too much, but I don't kid." Then: "Okay, so I kid sometimes. But that's the truth. She's my Aunt Cindy."

I was about to ask how he was related to someone so wealthy and powerful, then remembered Henry's dad owned the second-most popular, second-most largest store in on the continent.

Henry and Amber, my rich kid friends.

"Dad hates her with a passion, and Johto's League gets at least a third of its challengers from Sinnoh."

"So he gets his sister rubbed in his face all the time," I said. "Except I probably could have said that better."

"Probably," Henry mused. "I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. Young Henry, age seven. Dad stomped that out real quick."

"You wanted to be a Trainer," I said.

"It just…I don't know. I'm tired of this city, Sam. Everyone acts like Goldenrod City is the center of Johto, and how Kanto and Johto are the center of the universe, and hell, maybe that's true. But I don't want to spend my entire life here. That's stupid. There's so much to do. Kalos only just opened cross-national trading with us. How am I supposed to just stay in this city when there are kids like us, in places like this, all over the world?

"Here comes dad, of course. 'Go to college, study abroad.' I've got the grades for Olivine State, and there's no problem paying for it."

I had heard of Olivine State. It was on one of the sweaters Lucy wore. You know that when sad-sack teenagers are wearing your sweater, you're pretty renowned.

"But sure, let's go with that. Let's say I go to Olivine State for four years. Heck, shoot for the stars. I do Olivine State, study abroad in Unova, and intern for the Sinnoh Elite Four."

"Milk those connections?"

"Gotta milk those connections," Henry agreed. "But then I'm like, bloody _clerical staff_ for the Elite Four. With an apartment, a car note, and groceries…It's just lame. It's _lame_, Sam.

"I always figured I had no way out, that my life narrative was more or less set in stone, too."

"But then you met Hammo," I offered.

"But then I met Hammo. I'm a Pokemon Trainer now, Sam. If I didn't have to stay here and fight Unseen..." Then: "New Bark Town only requires ninth grade, and they give three Pokedexes on some funky quarter system. I already have Hammo, so Violet City and Azalea Town would be easy wins. And by the time I get to Whitney, I'd have two badges and some more friends.

"I'd come through here, and dad would get one moment—just one, when I'm buying items—to tell me how hard I'd fail. Then Hammo and I would wreck Whitney, move on…and hey, the world is infinite.

"The world is infinite," he repeated.

These weren't stories Henry told just anybody. He told Amber about his dad, and he told his dad he wanted to be a Trainer, but that's as far as things usually went.

These were Henry's dreams. His daydreams when work or school just bored him to tears, and they were they dreams he saw at night behind closed eyelids. This was the stuff of diary notes and journal entries.

Conner had called us a family, and I think I was starting to understand. Conner's parents refused to even acknowledge him. Amber was waging a war with her political parents and dealing with very-political, very-real consequences. Henry lived with a parent who was the antithesis of everything he wanted out of the world, and to Henry's parents, he was probably a disappointment at best and a mistake at worst.

But a family shares experiences, right?

Hannelore and I have the Boss, and that makes us family.

"I know it's just a god-awful thought to have, Sam," Henry went on, oblivious to my opinion. "You're right. The Unseen are terrible things, and the world shouldn't have to pay for my selfish desires, but that's my drama. My dad's not a terrible person, not even close. I'm the antagonist of my story."

Amber, Conner, Henry and I have more than the Unseen. We have our broken families, our busted hopes and our beaten desires. To everyone else, we're the last people on earth you'd want to deal with, much less have protecting you from the end of the world.

Henry said with a wistful smile: "What do you make of that, Team Listener?"

Henry, a bright boy who dreams of something more, is complaining about wanting to see the world from behind his oppressive, but nevertheless affluent family. And maybe that's true.

But to us, he was our fearless leader. He was the boy I was in love with.

I told the truth. "You're being hard on yourself. It's the truth, you never would have met Hammo otherwise. It's fair to say."

"No, it's _not_. You're just sugar-coating it." I hoped he wasn't becoming angry with me. "Lay it on me, Sam. Tell me I'm an awful person. Dad says I'm an awful person for wanting to be a Trainer, and if you say I'm an awful world-saver-guy, then that just completes the whole circle, doesn't it?

And when I stayed quiet, he grabbed my hands. "Tell it like it is."

To his dad, he was an ingrate. To us, he was a golden boy.

What I meant to say: Nobody's perfect. It's fine to have goals that go against what other people want, because everyone is like that in some way. The world knows I get by off of daddy drama and Cheetos, and as Hannelore will tell you, those are not easy to manage in a girl my height. But he was doing his best as a team leader for us right now, and that's all we needed.

What I said: "I love you, Henry."

The one time I wished for a Dome to fall around us, for Conner to call with an ominous message, or for Pika to do something hilarious and adorable…none of it could save me from myself.

Henry shrugged at first. "Thanks, Sam. I'm glad you don't think I'm a monster," he added a chuckle.

Then it slowly sank in.

I didn't say I like him, I said I _love_ him. He saw it all over my round, chubby-cheeked, blond-bang-covered, glasses-covered, pimple-covered face.

"You lovee me," he said again.

I found it in me to nod once, twice, third time's the charm.

"Sam, I…I can't. Not right now."

"…Oh."

"Not, 'oh!' Sam, you're a wonderful girl. Really."

Just stick a fork in me, then. I'm done. My goose is cooked. Took a risk, and fell flat on my face.

"I'm not dating anybody right now," he went on, though he really didn't have to. "We're battling the apocalypse, and I'm trying to find out how to leave this place. School starts in a week!" He laughed sadistically. "Having a girlfriend just isn't in the cards for me."

He let my hands fall.

"Okay?" He asked.

I nodded.

At which point I stood up, brushed the grass off my thighs, and walked away. Henry didn't chase me this time, either.

…

I still don't know why I did it.

I wonder, is that what criminals ask themselves in the middle of a crime gone perfectly right? At the height of their conniving brilliance, when they're in the safe and putting the wads of cash into those burlap sacks with dollar signs on them, do they suddenly feel remorse? Do they wonder: everything was going so well and I had my head above water and I had _no_ reason to betray any of that, so why did I do it?

Why did I do it?

Sitting at our table, eating from the bag of chocolate chips and reading over the files I found on Hannelore's desk, I still found I couldn't answer it right. Come back to me tomorrow, I'm currently misdialed or no longer in service.

I figured I needed to put the regret out of mind and just focus.

Hannelore had been right: most of what she worked on _was_ just bland order-sheets and inane filing. Something about filling out spreadsheets before a deadline, wherein she had to turn in a spreadsheet concerning those other spreadsheets…God, is this what I have to look forward to?

Wait, here we go.

A bright-green folder with the label: 'Pertaining to Unit 00 and Unit 01'.

Now, full disclosure. I had every intention of being caught. For some backwards reason, it made sense that if I sat at the table and went through the files in the open, then when I got caught, it would look better than having been in my room in the dark. Hell, being caught would look better than simply trying to put the papers back and not doing a good enough job. Given my extensive history as a lying viper of a daughter, that would just be embarrassing.

I opened the folder. Chocolate smeared onto the cover.

The pages were in a size 0.4 font size, if I ever saw one. Tables, charts, pie graphs…

Wait up.

The fifty-something-th page of file was just a map of Goldenrod City. It matched the image Conner had given me of the project his computer ran, where he found all of that Twilight energy under downtown. Sure, it was a bit eerie that Hannelore—and by extension, Hannelore's Company—would have the same map, but how hard was it to run that particular experiment if our resident boy-genius-mad-scientist could do it?

…Now, the map next to it with my apartment building circled on it, that was a problem.

I tried making sense of the charts along the side and bottom of the page, but they made no sense. Too many digits and symbols. I flipped to the other maps, and lo and behold, three circled locations and only one which I recognized: Conner's home, by the Village.

Meaning the other one had to be Henry's home, followed by Amber's hostel.

I flipped back to my house and the Goldenrod City general map. All four pages had one criteria, and that's when the world went mad.

'Unit 01 Containment Energy'.

I dialed for Conner so fast, it would make your head spin. Pika stared at me from the sofa.

"I'm not crazy, Pika-pal," I assured him. Ring once, ring twice, ring for the world…

"Hello, this is Conner—"

"Conner, it's Sam. I think I know where Celebi—"

"—I'm indisposed at the moment. Please record a message, and I will return your efforts with my own." Beep.

"Conner, it's Sam," I started again. "I think I know where Celebi is, but this is bad. I went through some files and it's…Well, you have to see it to believe it. Come to my place ASAP." Then, for emphasis: "ASAP!"

Yes, I did hear the door open.

No, I didn't make any kind of effort to fix the scene.

Hannelore dropped her briefcase and jacket on the floor and stared, wide-eyed.

"Samantha," she started. "Please tell me this isn't what I think it is."

"It is," I said. "But there's a reason for it."

"You went through my things," she said slowly.

"Yes, Hannelore, I did, but I had to. The people you work for are making a weapon—"

"You _went_ through my _things._"

"Hannelore—"

She slammed the door, then: "You _WENT_ through my _THINGS_."

"I need to—"

"Not right now, Sam. Just…I…Shut _up_."

Woah.

"I've…I've tried to get you to talk to me," Hannelore started, arms shaking that adrenaline-fueled shake. "I've been okay with you coming home whenever-the-hell you feel like. I didn't care that you brought in a random Pokemon from _nowhere_, because we're sisters. It's what we do for each other.

"But then you _go_ through my papers, which I know for a fact were in my room. You went in my room! It was closed! Closed, Sam! You don't have permission to go inside!"

This was the never-before-seen Class-Six Hannelore explosion. I wanted to deal with it, but I knew I didn't have the time. "I'm sorry, I—"

"Do you know who would do this? _Dad_ would do something like go through someone's things, for no reason, and for someone who hates him _so much_, you sure tend to act _just_ _like him—"_

I went to Hannelore and tried to hold her, but she shoved me. Like, seriously. My sweet-as-molasses sister shoved me.

And then she went silent.

"Hanna-B?" I pleaded.

"Sam," she said in her 'mom' voice. "I have nothing to say to you right now."

I let out a relieved breath. "Good."

Boy, did _that_ come as a shock. She craned her head like something out of a horror movie. "Excuse me?"

"Hannelore, I know I broke your only house rule, and believe me, I know it's something the Boss would do and I know how that's just one big cluster of problems, but there are bigger things going on right now than me and you. I'm ninety-five percent sure your company is evil."

"Evil."

I nodded, feverishly.

"Samantha, I don't have time for this." She started for her room, passing a very scared-looking Pika along the way.

"Hannelore, _please_. Unit 01 isn't an experiment, it's Celebi."

She stopped in the hallway, her hand on the knob.

"The people at your job have Celebi, and the reason our apartment is in those files is because I have a Pokeball with Celebi's energy."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Your company isn't doing experiments on some faceless Unit 01 thing to create an Everstone, they're torturing Celebi to create crosses in reality that they can use against Hoenn! You're creating the next weapon of mass destruction, Hannelore!"

"Shut _up_!"

"No!"

Cue my phone vibrating in my hand.

"I'm not going to shut up because this is my home too, and it's my responsibility to protect you, just like it's your responsibility to protect me! You're my family." I added: "And you are in danger."

"Samantha, my boss is downstairs," Hannelore sighed. "I'm getting changed, and I'm going out. We'll talk about this later tonight, but you're not to leave this apartment. Am I clear?"

"Listen to me!"

"Am I _clear?!"_

I couldn't push Hannelore any further than shouting at me like a full-fledged parental figure. Hell, I didn't want to find out how much farther she could go. I let her go behind her bedroom door, and when the lock clicked, I answered the phone.

I glanced at the caller-ID first. "Conner, now's really not the time—"

"This wasn't supposed to happen. There's a Twilight right now, but it wasn't in my records—"

"Find Henry or Amber. I've got my own problems right now."

"Sam, it's at your apartment building. Get out of there! I heard your voice message, I think the Company might be trying to—"

…And then the line went dead.

I let my body go limp. My arms fell to my side, my phone slid out of my hand and onto the floor with a gentle thud. The issue at hand had rapidly shifted from examining Hannelore's documents (succeeded) to de-escalating a fight resulting from the previous issue (failed), and now it was clarifying that Unseen would be coming right outside my house.

Step one, try not to panic.

Easy. Just go to your bedroom, pull open the blind, and look out the window.

Is the sky suddenly puke-green? Can you not see the rest of the city beyond a handful of blocks in any direction?

If so, proceed to step two: put your clothes on, sit beside Pika, and cradle your useless cell phone.

One thing at a time. Right now, I had to deal with my sister.

Hannelore opened the door, and when she started for the living room, I ran to her and took her by the arm. And when she dug her heels in, I dragged her until she started walking.

"Sam! What in the world is _wrong_ with you?"

"I'll explain later, but right now, I need to get us out in the open. It's not safe here. Pika, come on."

Pika jumped to my feet and followed me as I powered to the elevator. I didn't know if the building had stairs, and to be honest, I'd rather die fast and in a small metal box than after running up stairs in a narrow corridor.

Hannelore was frighteningly silent. I slammed the call button and thank God, the elevator opened.

We rode down in silence. I watched the light above the door as it counted down the floors. 3…2…

"You might see some weird stuff," I started. "Whatever happens, I need you to trust me."

"Weird stuff," Hannelore groaned. "Oh, my god, Samantha. You are _insane._"

…1…Ding. Door open.

The lobby, as expected, was dead empty.

As not expected...Actually, no, as I-probably-should-have-expected: Hannelore's boss, Mr. McCall. A class act all the way: black suit, slicked hair, shaved face and pointed eyes, like an especially conniving fox.

"Ah, Hannelore!" Mr. McCall smiled. "And…Samantha, was it? Are you joining us for dinner?"

"Not right now," I cut off Hannelore and went into the lobby. "Your company is doing some crazy stuff, Mr. McCall, and I think they're onto me. It's not safe for any of us to be in the building right now. My friends are coming to help, so don't worry. If we just go outside—"

"The doors locked behind me," Mr. McCall said casually. "I didn't think anything of it when I came in…" Then, to Hannelore: "Is something the matter?"

I held a hand up at my sister. God, if I didn't get her killed right now, I was _so_ getting thrown out.

…Deal with that when it comes, Sam. You might have just burnt your last bridge, but deal with that when it comes.

"I can't have us be inside right now," I tried to explain. I remembered what happened inside the Trainer School. "There might be some chaos very soon, and this whole structure might come down on our heads." Then: "Screw it. I'll just kick the door in—"

"That seems awfully unnecessary," Mr. McCall sang. "Especially since the Unseen won't come near us. It would only damage this property, which I am rather fond of."

…Oh, no.

"'Unseen'?" Hannelore asked the two of us. "That's not a…what are you two _talking_ about? Sam, leave my boss alone, _please_?"

"Your _boss_ is trying to cause another World War," I spat. I stared him right in the eye. "You're holding Celebi captive and creating Twilights here as dummy runs, so then you can use them on Hoenn. Tell me I'm wrong! Go ahead, I'm listening."

"You don't have to," Hannelore apologized to Mr. McCall. "My sister is…I honestly don't know. She's never like this."

Mr. McCall put a hand in his pocket and waved the other confidently. "Not at all, Hannelore. This is perfectly find and as a matter of fact, she's quite right."

Hannelore put her head in her hands. "Not you too, David. _What_ is going on?"

I heard that name before.

"David," I repeated. Then, when it clicked: "David McCall…You're joking. Amber—"

"Hannelore, dear, it seems our baby sisters have met," David McCall said slyly. The couth in his voice drained like blood from a wound. "Samantha, I assure you Amber will _not_ be coming tonight. Even if your friend Conner discovered the location of this Twilight, none of your friends will be able to enter the Dome from the outside. I thought you children were aware that the Dome was impenetrable."

"So I'm flying solo. Fine by me," I said.

"I would think not, actually," David boasted. "Here's how this will go. You will go back upstairs and give me your Celebi Ball. The unused one, because you might be able to fool your sister but do _not_ insult the Company's intelligence. Then, you'll come with me to the lab and await further orders."

"I don't think so." It was a good night to find my Hero Voice. "Hannelore, stay behind me."

"Whatever," Hannelore laughed. And in her defense, this _was_ all pretty ridiculous. "David, we're going to be late for dinner."

"A wild Samantha wants to fight," David replied. "I'll make this quick." He reached into his back pocket. The purple Pokeball—a Silph. Co-produced Master Ball—rested quietly in David's palm.

I glanced back at Hannelore. "Do you believe me now?"

* * *

As I'm uploading this, I'm working on the third-to-last chapter. It's been a fun run.


	11. This is what feels right

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

- "This is what feels right."

The Master Ball dropped to the floor and opened silently, the hinge bending back elegantly and just reeking of quality. Hannelore had been applying for jobs—as a pre-emptive strike for moving out—and worked with Silph Co. briefly after they produced the first one. She was promptly laid off immediately after the company failed to produce a second in a decent span of time. By the time they finally did, other countries were Master-Ball-capable, and Silph Co. wasn't the same.

Which begged several questions. Such as, how did the Company get their hands on a Master Ball, when there were so few in existence?

Or better yet, and probably more pertinent, what lurked inside?

I didn't recognize the creature at first. Clad in metal armor from head to toe, the being stood on two feet and stared at us through a thick black visor. Only its long, silvery tail gave a hint as it glided along the lobby tile. Then, just to drive it home for the intellectually-impaired, it began to hover ever so slightly off the ground.

"That's Unit 03," Hannelore said in awe. "The Mewtwo project." Then, more urgent than afraid: "David, what are you thinking, taking that outside the lab? Its power is untold, it's got unlimited stamina and nobody knows how to really control it. Are you _mad_?"

Gee, sis. Thanks for the tip.

David rolled his neck along his stiff suit collar. "Am _I_ mad, she asks. Hannelore, it's such a shame things had to go this way. You really were the best thing about working in my father's dubious scheme.

"But that has to end here." He snapped his fingers. On cue, the armor-clad Mewtwo raised its arm and stretched its gloved fingers.

"That's fancy armor," I joked. Because joking is my primary defense mechanism. "What, does your big, fancy Company think ye olde Unit 03 can't take Pika on its own?"

"_Take_ Pika?" Hannelore burst. "Samantha, you're not planning to _fight_ David, are you?!"

"Samantha Hutchinson, so unlike her sister," David started. "She failed almost every class in her middle school years, and not only is she the bottom of the barrel in high school, but the guidance counselors have declared her a lost cause." He grinned. "Where is that Hutchinson family brain? Or that beauty?"

"We're half-sisters," I said.

"In other words, she's the brain and the beauty." He sneered at Pika. "Leaving the baby sister with the brawn."

God, and I defended this guy when Amber wrote a nasty letter. Talk about misplaced kindness.

"Oh, Hannelore?" David sang. Then, to me: "Did you want to explain, or should I?"

I kept perfectly still, just like Pika. Like I was going to make conversation with something called a Unit 03 staring me down.

"I'll do the honor, then," David said. "The quick version is simple. Our job has been to create a weapon. A field that merges our world with another, through the energy you've been researching.

"I'll take that look of surprise to mean you didn't believe Samantha when she told you, hm?

"Now, the problem is her delusion of grandeur.

"My father and I have been following Samantha's friends for quite some time. My sister, Amber; Conner, the social misfit with a heart of gold; Henry, the only one of you with any shot of a normal life once this is over. Sinnoh politics and all."

He chuckled, bemused at Hannelore's frightened silence. "Those names ring a bell too, don't they? Fair enough.

"These four children believe falsely that the weapon was some bizarre product of aliens, or a prophecy, or whatever else have you. It would be so noble if they weren't all just so…displaced by society, I suppose you would say."

I had heard enough. Pika agreed; he had taken his fighting stance the second David started that gross monologue. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't light you up like downtown Goldenrod."

"Simple. You haven't used your only genuine weapon: the Celebi Ball. Perhaps if Conner hadn't wired yours directly into the Internet, and thereby to _us…_never mind. I hate to play what if. It's kind of a waste of time, if you ask me.

"Anyway. You're not bonded to your anomaly Pikachu…Unit 03 and myself, on the other hand…"

Now, I'd let it slide that we were totally wrong about Unseen and Mission Clears. He had a point: we were four kids, and he's the son of your old fashioned evil-conspiracy-political-family-thingy. Hell, I'll own that the Celebi Balls were the only thing we had in our corner.

But I had to draw the line. "Mr. McCall, you expect me to believe you dressed up a Mewtwo like a _tank _to get Celebi Ball powers? You're kidding."

"We've had Unit 01 locked away for over a year now. I dare you to call my bluff."

One look into his small, beady eyes and a flash of that devilish grin ripped right from Amber's face and dyed sinister, and I knew. Oh god, how I knew.

Unit 03 drew its fingers back for a split second, then whipped its arm across the width of its body. If I hadn't battled my share of abominations this last week, I probably wouldn't have believed it: purple lines of energy hung in the air, motionless. It tucked its chin in briefly…

"Sam, I worked on that armor," Hannelore managed to say. "He's not—"

"I can see that, Hannelore, thank you!" Then: "Pika, _move!_"

I put both hands on Hannelore's shoulders and heaved the whole of my body onto it. We tumbled to the ground in the nick of time: the purple lines shot outward as psychic needles, slicing through walls and shattering the elevator door behind us.

Translation: this guy could shoot through metal.

Pika had jumped to the ceiling to avoid the initial attack. He landed on his feet, undeterred but still a bit shaken. I got up slowly, and when Hannelore tried to stand beside me, one glance kept her down and covering her head.

"That's a neat trick," I told David. Pretty-honestly, too.

"Cut the crap, Sam," David said. He folded his arms, then started cleaning his fingernails. The nerve of some people. "I'll say it in terms you'll understand. The Clear Condition for this scenario dictates that only one of us walk out of this building. One call to R&D will drop the Twilight, just as artificially as it was created, but you'll have to give me your Celebi Ball first."

"Nothing doing." Then: "Pika, volt tackle!"

David threw his head back. "Have it your way, then. Unit 03?"

I think this is the best command I've heard since moving.

"Show her a good time."

Pika charged its cheeks and launched forward. It got to within an inch of Unit 03, and then it floated there in midair, just like the purple energy lines before it.

Unit 03 betrayed no thoughts. It hovered perfectly still. An unknowable machine.

It lifted the other arm as though it were dragged by a puppeteer's strings. One flick of the finger—

Pika flew back, as if thrown via catapult, and landed on the tile beside me with a discomforting 'thud'. He picked himself up handily, but I doubted he'd be Volt Tackle'ing anyone for the moment.

"Okay, so that's out," I said to nobody. "Try Thunderbolt!"

"Good try." David cooed. "But it won't be enough."

David's words rang too true. Pika's stream of blue electricity met Unit 03's open palms and turned to smoke, then nothing.

"Did that thing just _catch_ a thunderbolt?"

"Unit 03 represents the pinnacle of Twilight technology," David said. "The strongest Pokemon, amplified by the bond, but weakened by having no human tethered to it. You cannot win."

This was like fighting Conner. I had to listen to the same technobabble crap…except while fighting essentially a brick wall at the same time.

He was right, though. If Unit 03 had bond powers, plus legendary status in its own right…

"Hannelore?" I asked the huddling, shaking mass by my feet. She didn't budge. "Hanna-B, if you've got any pointers, I could sure use them."

David closed his eyes. "You're barking up the wrong tree. Hannelore knows that to betray the Company would be to betray _me_, and thereby provoke legal consequences—"

"Unit 03's armor is incomplete."

The air became very still.

"It's incomplete," Hannelore went on, her voice barely a whisper. "Its energy from Unit 01 is inconsistent. It only generates power before using its own energy…"

The lightbulb clicked. "Its armor only works right before attacking!" Then, to David: "Meaning I just have to wait for your attack tank to make a move, then hit right after. Seems fair enough."

David ignored me, instead regarding Hannelore with nostrils flaring. "…As I was saying, to release those kinds of secrets provokes legal consequences, up to and including imprisonment. But I suppose that boat sailed when your sister chose to fight us."

Just let him gab. I just needed one opening. Pika could dodge one attack, that was easy. If we could just get in that opening at hit the thing _once_…

"Riddle me this, Samantha. What do you intend to _do_ if you somehow beat Unit 03?"

Give him nothing, I told myself. Wait it out.

"Suppose you beat Unit 03, and the Dome drops around us. Now that you know the Twilight incidents are man-made, how will you proceed?

"Will you take the fight to the government? Begin some grassroots movement to prevent us from creating weapons?

"Or will you run to Hoenn, like Pokemon Master Ethan before you, and act surprised when that pathetic nation falls under Dome cover?"

I let a smile break across my face. "Are you going to talk all day, Dave? Some of us have places to be."

David unfolded his arms and waved them above his head. He and Amber were definitely siblings. "Quite right, you are." He snapped his fingers. "I'll end this with one stroke. Unit 03, Psywave. Now."

Unit 03 spread its arms wide, fingers extended, and waited for a moment. This would be when the armor gathered power. Attacking it now would just leave Pika open.

It drew its arms together, clapping its hands and slamming the metal gloves against one another. This was the opening. No purple lines anywhere, and this was the opening—

"Pika! Thunderbolt!"

I spoke too soon. While the words escaped my overconfident mouth, I saw some bizarre form of victory in my mind's eye. Unit 03 going down, David letting us walk out (which was in itself pretty bogus), and Hannelore working with us to bring the Company down. The second the purple spiral wave materialized from Unit 03's hands and raced for Pika, those thoughts went the way of the dodo.

Pika needed more time to charge.

The Psywave attack hit Pika full on, right while it was launching its would-be-brilliant counter. Purple energy hit him full in his plump yellow body and knocked him airborne. His body twirled with its usual grace, but not a muscle dared to move. He floated past me and against the elevator, splatting like an egg on the pavement. The energy wave lingered in the air a moment longer, and then Pika was slowly sliding along the steel surface, feeling nothing.

"That's a wrap," David said. "To borrow your phrase…looks like a Mission Clear."

To hell with him.

"Pika?"

I took one, two tentative steps to his fallen form.

Pika was just unconscious, is all. Tuckered out after fighting for too long. This happened all the time. He just needed some ketchup and he'd be fine.

"And the time is 4:00:01." He spoke into his wrist: "Send them in."

The front doors broke down and men clad in black armor rushed in, unfazed by broken tile and shattered glass. They were on Hannelore in a heartbeat, pulling her to her feet and craning her head back by her hair. She started to scream when one of the men put his gloved hand to her mouth. Hannelore's eyelids drooped slowly, and then she was over one of the men's shoulder.

I reached out for Pika.

I left the potions back in my room, but if I could just get upstairs, he'd be fine. Honest.

…I knew he wouldn't get up and fight for me again. That was too much to ask.

If we were bonded, I might not even…

None of this would have happened if I…

Hands pulled me up and away from Pika, and still I reached out for him. He was just sleeping. My Pika-Pal, just asleep. If I poked him in the side, he'd twitch his ear and shock me, like normal.

Things would be like normal. He just had to move…

Pairs of hands lifted Pika off the ground. His arms, legs, and tail dangled. I was screaming all of the sudden, yelling for them to Put him down, Don't touch him and Leave Pika alone but they had none of it.

The men dragged me toward David. I watched him flip the Master Ball in his palm before retiring it to his jacket pocket. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Hannelore and Pika be dragged to black cars outside.

"I told you how this would end," David said. "Your poor Pikachu, lying comatose from one blast…and then who knows what will happen to your sister…Sam, why did you make me do it?"

He bent slightly and tried to meet my gaze. I kept my eyes pointed at his shoes, but he had none of it. David took hold of my bangs and yanked them up, _hard_. My scalp screamed and I was eye-to-eye with David McCall, son of the Prime Minister.

I uttered the foulest word in the English vocabulary.

"Temper, temper. You can hate me all you want when we're through, Samantha."

"What do you want from me?" I managed.

"The Celebi Ball, I told you. We're going up to your room now, and if you resist, I can cause you considerable agony."

He could do what he wanted to me.

Well, no. I was still human, and pain still sucked. But that wasn't important right now.

I took a shaky breath. I begged my voice not to crack. If my voice broke now, when I needed it most, I could never forgive myself. "Our potions," I started. "I have our potions in my room."

"Oh?"

"If I bring you the Celebi Ball, you have to let me heal Pika."

David pursed his lips. He rolled his eyes for a full ten seconds. "You are in no position to make demands, little girl."

"Please," I said. "I'm begging you."

That seemed to change David's mind. He released my bangs and let my head flop back down. "Fair enough. Up the elevator. Lead the way, Sam." He waved his fingers at the two, maybe three bodies towering over me. They let their grip go just enough, and I started walking for the elevator, as ordered.

I pressed the call button. There was no feeling left in my fingertip.

The elevator hummed as it always had. I was suddenly reminded of all the trips up and down, in and out of the lobby, across the hallway to the apartment…This was my home. You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone, right?

Almost in response to my thoughts, the elevator shut down. We hung there in pitch-black darkness as the gears stopped with a painful crunch.

David was at his wrist instantly. "There's no power in the west elevator. Get those idiots at R&D—"

The grate above our heads fell to the floor and rang out. The men at my sides screamed out, almost in unison. David didn't get a chance to warn anyone on the other side of his wrist doo-dad, and instead he just started swearing. When you've lost everything, it doesn't surprise you how colorfully rich playboys can swear.

I felt something—a rope?—wrap around my waist, and then I was flying upward. The elevator shaft was only just bright enough for me to make out the walls, the suspension cables, the rim of my own glasses…and the hint of green at my rope. I looked up.

"I've got you," Amber said. She stood at the next floor's elevator doors, hand down and waiting for me to take it. Lili waited by her side, and the situation became clear: three of the leaves from her skirt extended into the elevator, and her arms carried me. Amber guided me to my feet beside her.

She regarded my shell-shocked appearance. "Sheesh, new girl. This is a rescue mission. Try and look happy about it, would you?" Then, to Lili: "Let the fellas loose, Lili."

Lili pulled her skirt and arms back to her body. Amber retired her companion to her red ball, and then we were running down the hallway. Amber held my hand the whole way.

"I'm sorry we weren't here sooner!" She called. "Conner doesn't know how he missed this date, it's ridiculous—"

"It's because this isn't a date," I said. I hoped I didn't sound as solemn as I was.

"Of course not, Sam! I don't like you that way." She grinned.

I briefly wondered which room Henry and Conner would be waiting in, when I realized: we were on the second or third floor, and gunning for the window. Staravia would be right outside. This ridiculous misfire of a day was almost done. I had lost everything, but at least the day was almost—

"Hold it right there, girls."

We were at the window. Like the one at the fourth floor, it covered the wall from floor to ceiling. I wondered where Staravia was, if I couldn't see it already from here.

Amber stopped us, but it wasn't a fearful stop. Her pulse didn't quicken, her breath didn't stop and her will to fight didn't extinguish. This was Amber, after all.

"David," she said cheerily. She didn't turn to see him. "Sorry, this is kind of a bad time. Maybe we can do lunch?"

"Amber, _please_. For once, let this moment not be about you?"

If Amber wasn't looking him in the eye, then I wasn't about to, either.

"Samantha, you know what we want, and _we_ know what _you_ want. Why are you running away?

"Why are you running _again_?"

Amber tugged my arm and stuck a foot out at my feet, tripping me and knocking me into the window. She was one step ahead: Amber had already crashed through it. Instead of possibly throwing my elbow and shoulder out, I was simply treated to glass in the face. We were in free-fall for a moment that felt much longer. I couldn't tell that we were okay until we were, well, okay. Not-dead okay.

"I've got you," Henry said. He had wrapped his arms around my waist and held me close as Staravia flew up, past the swarm of black cars on the familiar streets and the congested Village. Amber flashed a brief, relieved grin. Riding up at Staravia's neck sat Conner, too busy keeping us airborne to glance back.

I waved goodbye to my brief home. I wondered if I should have said a few words to the first place to truly welcome me with open arms, but then I was out like a light.

…

This is the last aside bit. After this, the story will be tied up, and you'll have everything. From the beginning of my story, being chubby middle-school Samantha age eleven, to still-chubby but world-saving Sam age fifteen.

This part started thirty-three hours before the first chapter of the story.

To the Boss, my day had begun just like any other. I woke up, I showered, got dressed, made us both an unhealthy breakfast of chocolate cereal and sausages, and left for school.

To me, this was virtually a holiday. I made sure to swipe all of the change I could from the Boss's pants, all in preparation for today. I needed spending cash. I had saved some fifty dollars' worth, so kids who are reading, never underestimate the power of your parents' loose jeans.

I had a system by now, and there was no reason to fix what wasn't broken. I went to homeroom and left right after.

I was to be at the usual spot at nine thirty that morning. Provided she hadn't changed what the usual spot meant, I knew I would find Lucy waiting by the old liquor store by that children's asylum of a junior high. I almost didn't recognize her. Lucy had dropped all of her excess weight. If I saw her at school, I would have written her off as just another skinny, popular girl. The hair pulled back into twin tails with a clip in front reeked of mainstream conformity.

"I'm not a mainstream conformist," Lucy said when I approached. "I know what you're going to say, Sam. It's not my fault. The folks don't let me leave home unless I look normal."

"Whatever that means," I commented.

"Exactly. Whatever that means." Lucy grinned. In that wide smile, I found my only friend again. She opened her messenger bag and retrieved a bag of Cheetos. "Heads up!"

"No fair," I said. I caught the bag and opened it without looking. "You're only here for a day. I said _I_ was going to treat _you_."

"Don't worry, you still are," Lucy laughed. "I just needed to get rid of that."

I fought the urge to stare at the calorie count on the bag. Lucy must have picked up on the struggle. "It's not because I hated myself or anything. My folks had me shut up like bloody Rapunzel until I dropped the weight and started being sociable and whatnot. You know they make me step on a scale every day?"

"Wow." My lips made a perfect 'o', through which I popped a Cheeto.

"Tell me about it. My body as a weapon of control…Man, when I go through that whole my-body-is-a-temple phase in five years, I'll have some delicious complexes."

I snorted orange dust.

We spent the day basically just like that. We left the usual spot and started off in a random direction. While we explored the nooks and crannies of grade-A Kanto suburbia, Lucy brought me up to speed with where her life's raft had sailed.

"The Chief doesn't talk to me anymore," she explained. "Actually, to tell the truth, I don't think we acknowledge each other beyond like, respecting physical space. Mom had to stop working outside the house to be around and keep us off of each other's throats."

"I'm sorry. That sounds rough."

"Nah, not really. It did get better. The Chief got fired for showing up to work high. He came home and tried to beat the living hell out of me, just because, but Mom got in the way. He's knocked me up and down the block at least once a week since I was eight, but he hits Ma _once_ and he's a whole new person.

"The king of forgiveness," she sneered.

"Yeah, we lost the house. But grandma's been cool with us staying with her." Lucy stopped on the sidewalk, and after a moment, looked upward. "I guess it just goes to show. Life goes on. Things become normal, what used to be normal becomes the past…" She laughed: "But family tends to stick through that, huh?"

Lucy took her turn first. I hadn't told her yet how the Boss kicked Hannelore out. Or how grandma had given me Hannelore's address and phone number for her place in Johto, but that was two weeks ago and I didn't know if I had it in me to use them. And yet, that was routine. I walked past that slip of paper on my nightstand every morning.

"I know what you mean," I said.

Even though Lucy dropped who knows how many pounds, she wasn't infallible to physical exercise. We finally stopped walking when we came to a park. It was one of those small-ish parks with a cute public library, a jungle gym, and concerned parents sitting on benches watching children enjoy said jungle gym. I had never walked this far out of my neighborhood before. I recognized none of the adult faces, and if they recognized me, they didn't show it.

We sat under the tree with the most branches. Because even though winter had just started, more branches means more of those crinkly leaves on the ground. Lucy fiddled with one in her thin hands. "Enough about me. It's not Annual Lucy day, after all. Your turn."

I didn't want to tell her about Hannelore. It would contradict her story and philosophy, about family togetherness and stuff. I am many things, but I'm not _so_ awkward that I faux pas with the only person who gives me the chance.

"The Boss had a party last night," I told her.

"Heh. 'The Boss.' I love the name." Then: "So, what happened?"

"Well…I was in my room reading, and the Boss decided to have a few friends over. Lucy, you're a pretty person now. Have you ever had one of your dad's friends try to hit on you?"

Lucy's eyebrows ran for heaven. "You're kidding. They didn't touch you or anything, did they?"

"Nowhere bad," I said. I didn't define 'bad'.

Lucy threw herself back onto the lawn, stretched her limbs, and oogled the clouds. "That's what I miss about you, Sam. You just take life one bit at a time."

"You think so?"

Lucy closed her eyes. "Sam, a lot of girls have worse lives than us, sure. But a lot of girls have it way better. I think getting through life without at least one major episode to your name is pretty awesome.

"Speaking of which." Lucy shifted gears before I could revel in the odd compliment. "There's something I want to show you."

"Okay," I said when she got quiet. Weird-quiet.

"It's in my bag. Take it out," Lucy suggested. "You'll know it when you see it."

And boy, did I ever. Moments later, I held in my hands my very first Pokeball.

I know it's a cliché to talk about how holding a Pokeball changes your life, and how suddenly the world makes sense and you understand why people younger than you will drop out and travel the world to be the Very Best, Like No One Ever Was, but…well, you have to hold a Pokeball to get it! There's this exhilarating feeling. You're holding something that sounds like it's impossible.

Yet, Pokemon and Pokeballs exist. They are possible. Maybe, you start to think…maybe _anything_ is possible.

I turned the red and white sphere over in my fingers, watching my reflection expand and contract along the black lock strip in the middle.

"Don't just gawk at it," Lucy said. "Open it."

"What do I do? Knock it against something?"

"_No_, Sam. Press the white button."

"White button, white button," I repeated. I pushed the lock down gently, and then forced the button hard when the ball didn't open. The ball broke open and showered me in crimson light. I flailed, one hand trying to catch the Pokeball as it hovered, and the other trying to hold the Pokemon that formed in my lap before my eyes.

The Pokeball snapped shut with a satisfying click. In my lap sat a four-legged Pokemon with a puff of white fur around its neck, adorably-massive black eyes, and a fluffy tail that caressed my calves as it danced.

"It's an Eevee," Lucy said. "I picked him up in Celadon City." She opened one eyelid and watched my expression go from awe to panic to frozen. Eevee snuggled into my lap and I was more furniture than girl. "Sam, don't tell me this is the first Pokemon you've ever seen."

"Up close and personal? All the way live?" I nodded.

Lucy rolled upright and picked up the Eevee with one hand. She let it rest in the grass; it rolled over and let us scratch its tight, furry little tummy. "Some old lady gave him to me. Mom had to do some errands and the Chief was out with some friends or whatever, so she dragged me along. The little old lady says, 'you look like a lost soul'.

"I'm not really feeling it myself, right? So I go along with it. The lady takes this fella's ball out of her purse and says, 'my friend here is lost, too. Perhaps you two can help find one another.' I put the ball in my pocket, and Mom still has no idea."

I was so envious. Lucy dropped her weight, _and_ she had her own Pokemon.

"That's so great," I said, taking care to suck up my envy. "All you need to do now is pack up and travel the world, battling gym leaders and stuff, huh?"

And when Lucy went quiet, I got suspicious: "Lucy, that was a joke."

"I know." She said it with the world's best monotone.

I drew my hand back. The Pokeball suddenly felt heavy. "Lucy, tell me you're not going to…"

"I'm not going to be a Pokemon Trainer, no," Lucy said. "But I am leaving. Tonight.

"Don't look at me like that, Sam. Jeez, it's like I said I ran over your dog."

"Sorry for being shocked," I mocked. "Did you tell any—"

"Of course not. My folks wouldn't even let me out of the house if they didn't have to. Getting my passport behind their backs took some serious plotting. I felt like I was some kind of supervillain…You know when it came in the mail, I actually laughed maniacally?"

I got a kick out of that image. Lucy standing over a globe, announcing her plot for mankind and how only Green Lantern could stop her now.

Then, it was back to the topic. "Where do you think you'll go?"

She shrugged. "I hear down south is nice in winter, so probably over to Vermillion City. I've got enough saved up to be in a hostel for a week or so."

"Then what?"

Lucy's lip tightened. "Sheesh, are you taking my schedule down?"

"Sorry," I fumbled. "I'm just worried…This sounds really sudden."

"It is! That's the point. I'm angry enough that this makes sense."

"Lucy, _no_—"

"I'm afraid that if I wait around to be calm and make this decision, then I'll chicken out," Lucy continued. "And I'll spend my youth wondering where I would be if I just ran, like I always wanted. It'll be rough, for sure, but at least anyone who hurts me or says mean things won't get to hide it by saying they're just giving tough love." Then: "That's the Chief's favorite excuse, by the way.

"If I go now, then even if I get into a spot, I know who I can trust. Even if that's just myself and Eevee, it's…it's right, Sam."

She smiled, first to Eevee, then to herself. "This is what feels right."

I wanted to stop her.

Believe me, I had seen enough bad television to know how this could go. She would end up being one of those abducted girls on the black market, being sold around Orre at a high price, or worse. The only person who knew was me, and that would make me virtually an accomplice to…well, to whatever the judge wants to charge me for.

"Stop worrying about me, Sam," Lucy laughed. "If anything happens, it's on me. That's why I'm leaving. I'm living for me."

I didn't know what to say…so, like a dolt, I asked what she wanted to hear.

"I'd like you to be happy for me," she said. "Drop me a line once in a while. Think you can do that, ol' buddy, ol' friend, ol' pal?"

I told her I could do that much.

I had let the time slip away. The sun fell gradually, and by the time we said our goodbyes ("You'll see me in another life, sister," said Dramatic Lucy) and I was heading home, I had missed dinner. Not that I really cared, though. I had a friend I hung out with after school. I was a high school girl now; I had a right to a social life.

That's what made it strange when I got home _before_ the Boss. I had to unlock the door, crack the windows, run the dishwasher and everything.

Except, the dishwasher had already been run. The mail had already been taken inside. Hell, the Boss's Nightly Drinking Glass was already at the counter. What gives?

A crawl went up my spine.

…I like to imagine that what happened next was, like so many of my lucky coincidences in Goldenrod, a sign of the divine.

The phone rang. I decided to sit in the kitchen and wait for the answering machine to catch it.

"Hello, you have reached the Hutchinson household. Please leave a message," said the Boss.

"Mr. Hutchinson, this is Mr. Polsky, Samantha's biology teacher? I hoped to catch you before you left, but you forgot your wallet in my room. I'll send her home with it tomorrow. Thank you again for taking the time to come in and discuss her performance. Feel free to leave me a message whenever you're curious about her grades."

Click.

Oh, god.

Oh, _god._

I miss one day, and that's the message I miss.

The Boss got a message to visit the school. And he did.

And at this very minute, he was barreling down the highway. Ready to come home and…My stomach flipped sideways. Cheetos raced up my esophagus at the thought.

The Boss wasn't just going to scream at me, or hit me, or beat me. I'd been skipping school and lying to him all sophomore year.

The man was liable to _kill_ me.

What could I do?

I stood up slowly. I couldn't feel my legs, and if the Boss walked in right now, I'd like to be given a running start.

A running start.

I wasn't thinking too clearly, I know. Having the fear of God running though your icy veins will do that. I knew it took a good half an hour to get to my school by bus. And if the Boss had already been on the road, then he was no more than fifteen minutes away from here, at most. I had to act fast.

I found my duffel bag behind my too-small dresses, in the closet where I left it.

I couldn't pick and choose what clothes I'd take. What does someone bring when they go on the run?

Sweaters. Lots of sweaters.

A few pairs of underwear. Jeans. Socks, for sure.

Lucy said she needed a passport to travel. I went into the Boss's room, dug through his desk, and found my passport and birth certificate in the 'Samantha – Legal' file. I thought the Boss was having another of his anal episodes when he dragged me and Hannelore to get our passport photos taken a few years back, as if I would ever travel. Funny the way the world is, if you think about it.

I zipped the duffel bag shut. My eyes made one last pass around the room.

Hannelore's information lay at my nightstand. I folded the note and shoved it into my back pocket.

I didn't say goodbye to that house of horror. I didn't try and remember my last journey down the stairs, and I definitely didn't feel any sense of guilt when I didn't lock up behind me. I threw the duffel over my neck, pulled my headphones up, and really only had one thought.

Please, God. Don't let the Boss drive this way and find me.

Fortunately, as we both know, that didn't happen.

My thick legs brought me to the light rail station, where a train to downtown Saffron waited for me like a golden carriage in a fairy tale. I sat in an empty car, watching the night skyline flash by.

My phone vibrated wildly in my pocket. As in, is-this-a-phone-or-a-detonating-explosive wild. Thankfully, I didn't disturb the non-bodies riding with me. The Boss could re-dial all he wanted.

I still had no idea where to go.

I could email Lucy and ask to meet up. We could hit the road together, two girls in search of adventure. Which sounded so much more dangerous than if she were off on her own. I didn't have a Pokemon for my protection. I would only slow her down. But what other options did I have? Where could I go?

At least for the night, where would I _go_?

I pulled my headphones off and closed my eyes for a moment. I needed to breathe. This panic wasn't helping. By the looks of things, I was a good forty minutes away from home, and the Boss would have no idea where to start hunting me down. He wouldn't just walk into the train car. I was safe, for now.

Remember when I said I never had a quiet place, because everyplace outside of school served that purpose?

This was Saffron City being my friend, for the first and only time.

"Next stop: Marville and Union. Connections to the Green Line and Magnet Train."

The Magnet Train.

Johto. Goldenrod.

Hannelore!

I stood up and fished the tiny piece of paper from my pocket. It fumbled out of my hand and, by God, did I snatch it back as though my life hinged on it. The train pulled into the next station and I left the car with my message out in the aether, going to Hannelore's email. The email that changed my life, as a matter of fact.

I knew it wasn't fair, what I was doing. Hannelore had her own life now. I couldn't just run away and expect her to take me in. Even if she had the resources to board me, did she have the time to deal with her sister?

…Did she even want to _see_ her sister? The one who basically abandoned her after she was thrown out?

I pushed that from my mind and hurried along the cold steel corridors of the Saffron train station. A bright display mounted along the wall displayed the mammoth Saffron Train System schedule. The next Magnet Train left in one hour. Boarding began in twenty minutes, and ticket sales ended in ten. I checked the time: it was just after eleven. According to the schedule, I would cross the border at four in the morning, and end up at Goldenrod just after noon. Pre-Magnet-Train, this was a week-long sojourn. Technology marches on.

I hustled to the ticket machine. One-way ticket, leaving at midnight. I laughed at that one: the Midnight Train to Goldenrod.

My fingers glided across the display, answering the questions as they came along.

Solo rider.

Pay-scale: child (17 and under). Scan passport.

Passport verification…Success.

Then: insert payment. $49.

My heart exploded.

I had completely forgotten about money.

The plan went up in smoke and I resigned myself to Death By Boss…until I remembered the money I didn't spend today. I threw the duffel on the ground and fished through it. I found the money at the bottom, crunched in my messenger bag when I had balled it up. It came to exactly $50.13, and thank the stars that my machine took cash.

My ticket to salvation printed under the display. I picked it up with a tentative, shaking hand. Boarding closes at 11:50, gate four.

It occurred to me then that this was real.

My fantasies about escaping this droll, hum-drum world for someplace better…they were real. I wasn't dreaming in my closet, huddled by paperbacks and listening to the angry rants of a drunken woman-beater. I was waiting for my Midnight Train to Goldenrod, and I couldn't give less of a damn where the Boss was right then.

…Only one thing could stop me now.

I stood very still.

Out loud, I began to count to ten. I would give the Boss exactly ten seconds to come here, rip the ticket from my grubby paws, and drag me home by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin.

"One…two…three…"

My voice echoed down the cold, impersonal hallway. I eyed the turnstile. Just past that were the closed-for-the-night shops and boarding platforms. I would walk past them quickly, taking in the first steps of freedom, the first feeling of being where the Boss could not follow. Then I would board the train, watch the window for his silhouette right until the door closed. And I would not fall asleep until the lady checked my ticket, matched it with my passport, and asked if I wanted a blanket and a Coke while the world raced by.

"Four…five…six…"

These were the last words I would tell Saffron City. Not an emotional goodbye, and not even an angry rant on how it harbored the fresh hell of my childhood and adolescence.

"Seven…eight…nine…"

I would count down until I could leave on a clear conscience.

"…Ten."

And then I was gone.

…

"She's still out like a light…Tell me about it. I don't blame her, though. If it was just me and David, I swear to high hell…Yeah, well. Let him listen in. David, if you're listening to my phone, know that you're just, absolutely the salt of the earth."

Amber.

I blinked once, twice. My eyes stung with unholy fury, and then everything else hurt right after, like pain dominoes. Worst off was my empty stomach. I thought back to the last time I ate something…I couldn't remember, dead-honest.

"Hey, she's moving," Amber said. "I'll let her know."

I forced my eyelids up. I couldn't make sense of what I was staring at for several seconds. Not until the girl above me turned over and her mattress springs croaked. This was a lower bunk.

Meaning…

"I brought you back to my hotel," Amber said. "It's kind of late, and I don't want to wake anybody up. If you want food, I've got some pizza outside."

In another life, I would have jackknifed up and been at that pizza in seconds.

In this post-traumatic-stress-world, I had to crawl up slowly. My head barely missed the underside of the top bunk. The bed frames that cheap white metal pipe variety, the kind you get from a supermarket in some warehouse store. The lights were off in the room, so while my eyes were staging a revolution in the form of pain, my retinas weren't in danger of being burned out from overbearing light, either.

I counted six other bunk beds. Four of them were entirely occupied with other girls of various sizes and hair lengths. My gaze lingered on the one body whose head was just a curly hair disaster. I wondered, is that a human being or a tumbleweed?

At the bed farthest in the corner, I recognized Amber's jacket, the one she wore that afternoon in downtown at the global link. The sheets were made perfectly. She had taken the bottom bunk: I spied two duffel bags and a small suitcase hiding underneath. A few pairs of socks and a bus schedule taped to the wall completed Amber's Room.

I braced myself against the bed frame as I stood up.

"Wake up, Pika-pal," I droned. When I didn't hear Pika bounce to life, I regarded the fatter of my two pillows. "Amber's got pizza. Come on, wakey-wakey."

I poked the pillow once, twice. My finger met beaten-down fabric. No electric jolt to be seen.

I remembered, then.

I remembered everything.

When I walked out of the shared bedroom and into the hallway, I found Amber sitting across from the doorway, writing in a small notebook. The box of pizza, as promised, lay closed beside her.

"Close the door," she whispered.

I did as directed. "Where is this place?" I asked. Then: "This is your hostel, right?"

"Goldenrod Travelers," Amber said, this time at normal volume. "Quiet hours started a while ago, but the staff knows me. They'll just get mad and ask me to do a few chores or something. Some guy projectile-vomited on this very wall last week…yeesh."

I slowly examined the hallway. A pale white corridor and a maroon rug running past two other doors, then down a staircase to who knew where. One lone window hung on the other wall. The scattered light show of the sleeping city danced outside.

Amber stood up, first bouncing to her haunches, then waddling to the pizza box while still bent at the waist. "Let's go out back," she said as she sprung to full height. "This 'za won't eat itself."

"Good news," I replied. "I don't think my stomach plays by those rules."

Amber led the way. She had tied her hair up in the red ribbon; I followed it down the stairs, through a main lounge area where a several middle-aged men lay passed out at the bar counter, and past a corridor with public restrooms to the backyard. We sat at one of the two picnic tables set up in the small square of overgrown grass. Amber opened the box and the glorious supreme pizza essentially made love to my eyes.

It's not a gross metaphor, it's the truth.

"Magnificent, ain't she?" Amber did that kiss-your-fingers-in-front-of-food thing. "Ray's Special. I usually never buy it, since he doesn't sell slices, but since I've got company, I figured…what the hell.

"I didn't remember to buy plates, though. And this isn't really the safest place to go out and find a convenience store in the middle of the night."

The middle of the night. Only then did I notice just _how_ pitch-black the sky was. I turned my head up and stared right into the thick of the starless abyss. I blinked a few times, and there was no difference.

"What are you doing? Quit gawking and eat something."

Again, I did as I was told. It was almost romantic. We were surrounded by those Christmas lights you buy in bunches and never use again, because they end up in those gross tangles and make you cry a little at the very thought of fixing it.

"Yeah, the hostel boss is afraid of that," Amber said when I asked about the lights. She liked to pick the toppings off of her slices, then eat the near-bald pizza last. "They're not Christmas lights, either. I called them that once and he said that wasn't politically correct." Then: "Thank you for noticing our Holiday Lights, Sam." She smiled.

I ate one slice without thinking; my mouth just kind of inhaled cheese and bread goodness. I reached for another piece and pulled my greedy hand back.

"No, new girl, go for it. Please. Eat. I'm eating at least half of this, and if you don't help, then I'll have to put it in the fridge, and the bar flies will expect it to be there next time."

I resumed eating, then.

"I suppose I could just throw it out…Nah. The hostel boss hates wasted food. He did one of those volunteer programs where they get rid of your student loans? Hostel-boss-guy was out in Hoenn right around the whole Rayquaza Incident and, yeesh. If you think _you're_ starving, he could tell you stories."

I finished the second slice and raced for the third.

"You can slow down," Amber said. "The waiter's not gonna come and take it away."

"You said it was okay to eat."

"I did, but like…savor it?" Amber raised a questioning hand. And while I chewed, this time slowly like she wanted, Amber regarded me silently.

I asked a question to fill the void. Or maybe so she wouldn't ask me one first. "How long have you been living here, Amber?"

"In _this_ hostel? Not long. About three weeks." She rested her chin in her palm. "There are a bunch of hostels around Goldenrod, but half of them are lame. Student-only, Trainer-only, co-ed rooms where girls get discounts for shady reasons…You get the idea." She bit her lip. "I really liked the last place."

"What happened?"

"They needed my bed, and I had already overstayed the night limit. It happens." She shrugged, then smiled. "You're looking like yourself again."

I made an uninterested noise as I chewed. Amber went on. "Henry said that when you passed out, you were like a ghost of yourself. I told him you just needed a few hours rest…That said, you did sleep for twelve hours straight."

I did the math. "It's four in the morning?"

"And I stayed awake and by your side," Amber said proudly. "We all did, actually. Conner hasn't slept yet, he's been too busy working on that prototype Celebi Ball of his. Something about reverse-engineering the energy from it into a receiver..? I don't get it.

"Henry's staying with Conner right now," Amber went on. She said it all snooty-like. I was supposed to suddenly spring into action over him. "Conner's parents act like he doesn't exist, so he figures if the cops suddenly fall through the ceiling, it's not his problem. But Henry's family has something to lose, so he's pretty much on the run for now."

I remembered what David said. Henry was the only one who could ever have a normal life.

Hannelore had that same chance too, I realized. When she left, she made herself a new life, and I came along and ruined everything. Poor Pika might have had a family back in his home dimension, too…I just wreck everything, huh?

I cleaned my glasses, daring myself to start crying.

"Amber," I managed.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I need to go back."

She regarded me with her brow furrowed. "Go back to…where?"

"Back to my…" I almost used the h-o-m-e word. "Back to the apartment building."

"Oh, if you're worried about your stuff, Conner swung back after the fuzz left your apartment. We got your legal stuff and your Celebi Ball, plus a sweater or two." Then, in a failed attempt at humor: "If you're trying to charge your phone, though, you're SOL."

She scratched at the back of her head.

"Where is it?" I asked. "The Celebi Ball, I mean."

"Under my bed," she started to recite. "Safe and sound. Some girl accidentally went through my bag once and I almost knocked her teeth out…Why?"

I must have mastered that 'lifeless' look overnight, because one look at me told Amber all she needed.

"No, Sam," she said firmly. "I don't care what my brother said. You're not giving your Celebi Ball to him."

"I have to," I reasoned. "He has Hannelore…They have Pika, Amber. I don't have a choice."

"Bull_shit _you don't have a choice!" Amber smacked the table with her flat palms. "What did I tell you before? This is what my family does. It's all my brother knows. David manipulates people to serve his own ends, and he doesn't care who he hurts. You can't give in to a sociopath like that!

"I couldn't give in," Amber added. "Neither can you."

"I'm _not_ you, Amber." I couldn't bear to meet the outrage in her glare. "You have money, and connections, and your mom…All I have is my sister."

"Wrong. You have me." She slapped a hand to her chest. "Conner and Henry are here for you, too. You're not nearly as alone as you think you are."

"That's not true anymore."

"What are you _smoking_, new girl? I've saved your life. You've saved mine. Hell, I dragged you here when you weren't even conscious. In what bizarro world does that equal being alone?"

"All of that happened before we knew," I said. It wasn't supposed to be that vague, honest.

"Before you knew _what_?"

In other words, they hadn't understood yet. Conner had to know, right? Why hadn't he told them?

"Amber, the Twilights aren't just man-made. The list of dates is a lie." Then, not caring to mask the gravity of the situation: "David's guys just make them whenever they want."

"They _can_, yeah. He's building a weapon. That's why I'm here—"

"You're not hearing me, Amber."

I heard the Boss's voice come out of mine, and I froze.

"I'm trying to," Amber said. "I'm listening. Talk to me. We still have this pizza to finish, after all."

I told her the story while she picked at the fourth humongo-slice. About how David generated the Twilight on the spot, and how he kept Unseen away because he felt like it. I told her about how the Celebi Balls were the one weapon we had, and even then, Unit 03 had the bond powers anyway thanks to his armor.

Amber threw her legs up on the bench and held them. She rested her chin on her knees. "I think I'm getting it. You think—"

"I'm not _making this up_."

"Don't bust my balls, okay? I'm trying to follow.

"David's R&D guys can make Twilights, and already has the power of the Celebi Balls, but without actually, well, having them. In other words," she rubbed her temples, "We're not exactly the three musketeers, are we?"

"No," I shook my head. "It's funny. This whole time, I thought we were saving the world from some alien threat…it's been people, all along. Plain, ordinary people."

"There's nothing ordinary about my brother," Amber spat. "But I hear that…How we're not as special as we thought. I think that's a more familiar sentiment than you realize, Sam."

"Then you know why I can't let you guys stop me," I continued. "I'm not fighting some crazy evil, I'm fighting the Johto government. I can't let any of you get involved.

"None of you will die for me," I added. Because there could be no misunderstandings.

Amber nibbled on pizza crust, and as I finished my little speech, she tossed the rest of it into the bushes by the fence. "Sam…are you always on? God, it's always so _dramatic_. Look, I'm willing to compromise on this."

"There can be no _compromise—"_

"Would you let me finish? I'm willing to compromise because I'm just as screwed as you are. My brother has your sister. Should I repeat that?"

She had a good point. I was going to rescue my family from the bad guys…her family _was_ the bad guys.

"You want to keep Conner and Henry out of this, though?"

I nodded. "They have lives, Amber. It's not fair to drag them into my mess."

The sun had started coming up. The night around us turned to a softer purple, and gradually, I was able to make out more of Amber's features. Even without a good night's rest, she was prettier than I could ever hope to be. The pointed features, the slim waist and the rosy cheeks, not to mention wavy hair than framed her face perfectly…I could lose as much weight as I wanted, and I would still looks worse than Amber on a bad day.

Yet, here she was, by my side with pizza between us.

"That's fair, I guess," she said. "Though I'm not excited about this. If it goes wrong, Lili and I are enacting the super-violent Plan B."

I smiled, which surprised me. I worried that Hannelore took my smiling muscles with her. "Thank you, Amber."

"Don't thank me yet. You don't know where you're going, or what you're walking into."

"You do?" And when she didn't show a single crack in her stoic appearance: "You _do_. You know where the Company is…You've know this whole time, haven't you?"

"If you mean, I knew where my brother worked this whole time…yeah, totally. Did I know where the Legion of Doom were generating Unseen? Nah, that's not really fair." Then: "But I totally did, though.

"Hey, the sun's coming up." Amber stood up. The world around us took on a slight orange hue. She pursed her lips. "Seeing as how we might end up political prisoners in a few hours…Want to do something fun?"

"Like what?"

"Wanna climb to the roof and watch the sunrise? I'll bring the 'za."

I laughed again. "Sure, Amber."

"Great, I was hoping you'd say 'yes'. If I'm going to spend my life behind bars, I'd want at least one memory of watching the sunrise with a friend."

She took the box off the table and brought it with her to the side of the building. The emergency ladder looked like it hadn't been used since the last emergency, maybe a decade ago…But I didn't really care about that.

If I told you I almost forgot about Hannelore and Pika, because for the first time in forever, I had another friend to eat bad food with complain about life with…would you hate me?

* * *

Thanks for reading, as always! Sorry for the long chapter, but really, this was the most fun writing I've had for this story so far.


	12. I'll be brave for you

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

- "I'll be brave for you."

It was true: Conner had brought a few things of mine and crammed them in a backpack. It was one of those over-the-shoulder bags that had been worn from years of use and abuse, but I was in no position to complain.

After the sun had come up and Amber said we were in danger of getting thrown out for being on the roof, we went back into the lounge and made battle plans.

Said battle plans chiefly consisted of us showering—me for longer than necessary—then eating the free hostel breakfast of unlimited toast and butter. I wondered if I smelled funny; I had to use the free soap, which I hoped was actually free and not just 'borrowed'.

I realized, I needed to travel more. If I got out of this alive, I was going to travel more.

When I was dressed, dried, and back in the lounge, Amber sat by herself reading the newspaper. Her hair hung at her shoulder and her bangs kicked out in the front. Only Amber could show off her bed head.

"Eat something," she said casually. I noticed her plate had a full six slices of buttered toast. "Something tells me we'll need energy today."

"Who are you telling," I joked. I shuffled to the far window, where a few of those outdoor tables had been connected to make a meager breakfast spread. Joining the several loaves of bread and sticks of butter were boxes of store-brand Cheerios ('Joes O's'?) and milk, then two coffee machines. Both pots were full. I poured my first cup of coffee ever, piled on some buttered toast, and joined Amber.

I wondered why she was sitting by herself, but as I crossed the lounge, I noticed that she kept to herself by choice, not by circumstance. As other travelers—all of them seemingly college aged, five or six years older and without any awkward baby fat—came down the stairs, they waved, and she nodded her head and smiled.

"I'm not _that_ popular," Amber said when I asked about it. "That's how travelers are. Everyone here has no idea where they'll be in twelve hours. Why not be pleasant to people you might never see again?"

She paused. "That was morbid, wasn't it? Given the situation, I mean."

"Just a little." I forced a smile. I rested Conner's bag beside me. "Are you ready to go?"

She nodded while turning to another page.

"Where are your bags?" I prodded.

"I'm not checking out, if that's what you're asking."

I took a bite of toast, so I'd have an excuse for staying silent. Amber noticed; she pursed her lips, folded the newspaper back up, and raised another slice of toast. "Sam, you've been in…what, three Twilights?"

I nodded.

"I lost count somewhere around twenty," Amber remarked between chews. "Sam, if I were to check out and take my stuff with me every time my life was in danger, I would have run out of places to stay.

"I'm a soldier," she added. "Though I also paid for another week and a half here. I only paid for one night for you, so…Vamoose, moose." She smirked.

"Amber?" I asked when she reached for the morning paper again.

"What is it now, new girl?"

"Why are you being nice to me?"

"Not this _again_…"

"I want to know," I pushed. "Henry and Conner were both kind to me from the beginning but you—"

"Henry's sweet on you but doesn't know how to show it. And Conner's just glad to meet _any_ human female besides me or his mother." Amber scratched the back of her head. I let the assumption of Henry's feelings slide.

"Sam, I'm a bully," she said in a low voice. "I'm mean. Henry gets chewed out and I outright refuse to comfort him; Conner asks for back-up and I tell him to suck it. You stood up to me."

"I…did?"

"On the underground," Amber said. And I remembered: I had just gotten back from that awkward episode with Conner. "You're not the kind of person who gets walked over. I respect that."

There were _so_ many things wrong in that statement, it was almost criminal.

"Why are you shaking your head at me? It's the truth." Amber folded her arms. "If you're shaking your head over Henry, it's obvious he's into you. The boy didn't follow _me_ around every day when I first started fighting Unseen, I'll tell you that much."

There was another of those silences that are supposed to be an unspoken answer, but are really just me not wanting to push the conversation further. I love those silences. I wish I knew about them back in Saffron, honestly.

Amber stood up abruptly. Her hair bounced along her shoulders. "It's almost nine, new girl. Let's get to getting."

"Is that a phrase around here?" I asked.

Amber shrugged. "Probably not. I'm trying to get you excited, is all. This isn't death row, but it's like nobody told you."

It wasn't death row for _me_, no.

"I'll be fine," I promised. "As soon as I know Pika and my sister are safe."

"I'll accept that answer," Amber replied.

Unsurprisingly, Amber's hostel was in one of the scuzzier parts of downtown Goldenrod. Granted, anyplace in downtown Goldenrod probably cost a literal golden rod per month in rent.

"I picked the lamest place for cover reasons," Amber explained. I tried to ignore the older men ogling the two teenage girls walking down the sidewalk first thing in the morning. "I figure David and Old Man McCall won't look for me among normal people." She put a finger to her lip. "Makes me wonder, how long have they known where I was?"

"Probably the entire time," I answered. We crossed the street and suddenly, buildings glistened and gentlemen smiled.

I would have lost sight of Amber now, as we entered the Great Sea of Business Commuters, if not for their monochrome wardrobes and Mandy's ribbon around her wrist. When I struggled to keep pace between the towering bodies, Amber reached back and took my hand in her own. We emerged from the swarm to stand in front of Henry's dreams.

"Goldenrod City Gym," I awed. "It's just like the picture."

"Ain't it, though?" Amber laughed. The towering structure spread along an entire city block and stretched into the sky, rivaling only fellow-tourist-eyesores like the Radio Tower in scope. I recognized the Normal Badge emblazoned above the door. A long row of automatic glass doors—the one-way-reflective kind—awaited us.

Amber tied her hair up and to the side of her head. The ribbon ends dangled around her ear lobe. She flicked a handful of bangs out and, in true Amber fashion, she had completed a style change on total improvisation. She winked when she caught me walking. "Are you ready for this? Save your data now, just in case," she joked.

I gripped the backpack strap on my shoulder with both arms. "I'm ready for anything."

Amber beamed. "That's my new girl."

We approached the automatic doors together. The glass panels rushed open to reveal a plain lobby. Chairs and vending machines lined the walls. I spied a few computers near the corners. The reception desk sat front and center, and to either side were two massive doors with Pokeball designs. A woman old enough to be mine and Hannelore's big sister sat behind the desk, filing her nails mindlessly. As we walked to her, the woman glanced up, batted her outrageous eyelashes, and returned to her work.

Amber took charge immediately, like you and I both knew she would. "Excuse me. We're here to see your boss. Send down the strike team or whatever."

Most people would respond with 'I don't know what you're talking about' or something similar. The desk lady didn't even care enough for that. "Whitney only takes challengers with two or more badges," she recited with the enthusiasm of a corpse. "Make an appointment at the computers. She should fit you in some time this afternoon."

If everything went right today—not that I had any idea what that entailed—then Henry would soon be doing those exact things.

While the desk lady droned on, Amber found the security cameras along the ceiling edges. She waved at one and blew a kiss at the other. Then, back to the desk lady: "I don't mean that boss. I'm here to see Prime Minister McCall."

Desk lady was unrelenting, if predictable. "Sorry, young lady. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't. You're a working-class peon, after all."

_That_ got desk lady's knickers in a twist. "_What _did you call me?" She sneered.

"You should probably buy a better foundation, by the way. It's starting to crack right around the eyes."

_Amber!_

"But yeah, get your boss on the phone. Prime Minister McCall and his dopey sidekick, David? Tell them Amber's here with Miss Sam Hutchinson." And when the desk lady couldn't believe the nerve of some teenagers, Amber snapped her fingers. "Some of us don't have all day, ma'am."

The receptionist reached for the phone and eventually started dialing. She took her time, electing to unleash her Evil Eye on the two of us. Luckily, after the way Hannelore went off on me yesterday, I didn't think I could be intimidated that easily anymore. Amber simply folded her arms, turned around, and leaned her back on the desk.

She winked again, this time with a snide grin on her face.

The desk lady let the phone fall back into the receiver. She reached her hand down below the desk and presumably clicked that bright red button from the movies. A set of hidden elevator doors opened immediately behind her. She then stood up and pushed a section of the desk up by its well-hidden hinges.

"Minister McCall has been expecting you," she said.

"Of course he does," Amber said, as sickeningly-sweet as humanly possible. We walked past the receptionist and entered the elevator, which closed automatically behind us.

Then, we were going down.

"Into the bowels of the beast," Amber mused. She took out her phone and fiddled with it.

"What are you doing?"

"Making sure I don't have anything incriminating on here. David's pretty good at getting inside people's heads, so I figure the less ammo I can give him, the better." She cast me an aside glance. "And if you've got anything important in Conner's bag, you should probably hide it on you."

I unzipped the worn backpack and fished through its meager contents. I found my worn passport.

"New girl?" Amber cringed. "Why are you stuffing that down your shirt? I meant, like…cram it in your back pocket or something."

"Force of habit," I replied.

We were still descending. "I guess we're not in Kansas anymore…"

"Nah. The Gym probably didn't even have any lower levels. This is all government." Then, to herself: "This is all my dad's."

The elevator stopped. The doors rushed open, and a warm welcome awaited us. The large room had plush carpeting with one of those swirly designs, and comfy-looking furniture had been arranged neatly in the center. Plants rested in ornate vases along the walls, sandwiched between tall bookshelves. It almost looked relaxing, if not for the windows looking out to a cold, silver facility.

I recognized David instantly. He sat on a deep-magenta love seat, legs propped up and arms folded. Directly across from her was Hannelore, looking exactly as she last did, though her mascara ran. Bulky men in suits—I was reminded of the guy that picked me up in the limo on day one—were suddenly beside us.

I told myself I wouldn't run to my big sister, but she had made no such promise. Hannelore was on her feet and running to me. "Sam, you're safe—" Was all she managed. One of the big guys had her by the arms and forced her back into the seat.

Amber cracked her neck. "All this class, and you guys still aren't above harming ladies. The family charm is alive and well in Goldenrod."

"If you hate how we treat ladies," David remarked, "Then you'll love how we treat blood traitors."

Amber was unfazed. "Do I get the executive suite, or just a double? The mini-fridge isn't free, I imagine."

"That is _enough_."

That booming voice could only come from a thoroughly pissed-off father. I had overlooked the large man standing in the far corner, his bald head hung as he watched the facility in motion. The way his black suit framed his broad shoulders perfectly screamed of disgusting wealth. He turned to us slowly, and he didn't even have to stretch his arms up, click his tongue, or crack his neck or do any other nervous McCall family tick for me to see the resemblance.

It was as though David's face were planted onto an aged body. His cheeks had puffed out after years of fine dining, for sure. Bags sagged under his tired eyes, and the rest of his skin had a decidedly leather-like appearance. His fat, cracked fingers were delicate around a small glass of undoubtedly pricey alcohol.

"Samantha," he began. "It's wonderful to finally meet you. Amber so rarely brings friends home. Please, call me Mr. McCall."

"What else was she supposed to call you?" Amber barbed.

"Prime Minister, or perhaps something like 'your excellence'. Anything less and my men would snap her neck, obviously."

Well, there's the ole' family sense of humor.

"Welcome to the R&D Department of the Company," Mr. McCall said. He gestured to the facility outside. "We're currently fifty feet underground. Employees live in dormitories, and thanks to the Unit 00 radiation, require a detox period before being let into the outside world. Since David and I are here for so often, we like to make things comfortable." Then, probably just to test my mettle: "Can I get you girls something? Coca-Cola? Root beer? Amber loves root beer, isn't that right?"

"What do you want from me?" I asked. My voice shook, but seeing as how I was still alive, I didn't have a right to complain.

Mr. McCall feigned concern. "My son, David, he asked for something of yours. A small item, something that would be instrumental in our project. Surely you didn't…forget to bring it?"

The way he said that last word so soothingly…

God, at least when the Boss was about to knock you out, you saw it. This guy could have me killed without so much as a raised heartbeat.

"My Celebi Ball, right," I managed. I unzipped my backpack, and a nod from Mr. McCall kept the goon squad from sending me to the next world.

When I pulled the red sphere of swirling energy, both David and his father became entranced. David was on his feet in seconds. He snatched it from my sweaty palm and, just because he could, rubbed the part I had touched off on his sleeve.

"It's remarkable," David said. I watched the waves of colors reflected in David's black eyes. "_This_ is the device. All of this, father…this chess game you've been moving, it's about this little ball."

"People have died for less," Mr. McCall said without pause. He held his hand out expectantly, but to his surprise, David didn't take notice. Instead of barking at him like, you know, a _normal_ parent, Mr. McCall simply nodded at his goons. One of the towering bodies ripped my Celebi Ball from David's hands and presented it to Mr. McCall, who held it and regarded it with awe.

Amber stole my next lines. "You've got what you wanted. Now, let Pika and Hannelore go."

"Amber, do you understand just how much this means to me?" He glanced up and both of us. "What my holding this ball represents?"

"Something Freudian, maybe?"

The goons both fidgeted uncomfortably. They could have ripped her open for that, but seeing as how it was Amber…then again, this _was_ Amber. It could go either way.

Mr. McCall walked around the back of Hannelore's couch. He ran a stubby finger along the backs of the cushions.

"When we broke Unit 01's will," he began, "we had an unlimited supply of its energy, which meant an unlimited capacity to create Twilights. Overnight, we put the invasion of Lillycove City on the calendar."

"Oh, so you're not trying to hide it? World War with Hoenn. That's definitely a thing."

Amber's father ignored her jabs. "We were able to synthesize the Twilights with Unit 00's willing energy. Putting that chemical reaction into a missile would be so simple…but then, someone found out about Mission Clears.

"We wondered, how did that happen? Unit 00 informed us of the Unseen, and what they did to a parallel world, but Mission Clears were absurd.

"Slowly, we understood. We found out about the bond, hence Unit 03, which is currently under my son's jurisdiction."

It was probably my turn to quip, but I didn't have the stones.

"We wondered, though…in our world, Pokemon and humans can only bond with technology we created, and the Pokemon of the other world cannot exist outside of the Twilight. So…how?

"One day, we find Unit 01 energy scattered around Goldenrod City.

"That's funny. How could Unit 01, which we have under custody, be outside? Be stopping our agenda? It only took some surveillance camera footage and a bit more research to get the full story.

"And what a story it has been." Mr. McCall savored the words. "But it is over now." Just to be sure: "Samantha, your role is done."

Hannelore didn't need to be told twice. She bolted from the couch and had me pressed against her in the time it took to say her name. Hannelore pressed my head into her shoulder so hard, I was starting to get a headache.

Next thing I know, guards are pulling us apart and dragging us to the elevator.

"Dad!" Amber yelled. "What are you _doing_? You said you'd let them go!"

"I can't allow that just yet. Her role in history books is done, but not quite in science. Pika shows signs of being bonded without a Celebi Ball, which says nothing of its developed sensitivity. The Hoenn resistance might use these secrets against us. I cannot take that chance." Then, to the goons holding us: "Take them to their new home. And Amber," he sang, "I believe we have family matters to discuss.

The guards pushed us back into the elevator, and Hannelore wasn't letting go of me this time. I was caught in a web of arms: Hannelore holding me close, with both guards holding onto my shoulders.

Amber watched as the doors closed on us.

As bad as things would be for Hannelore and me…Amber was about to deal with her personal Boss.

…

The doors opened again, revealing a long steel corridor. The goons pushed the two of us forward, leading us at a rapid pace.

"Are you okay? They didn't do anything to you, did they?" I asked Hannelore. "I swear, I'll bust David's face."

"Don't worry, I'm fine! Really!" Hannelore forced a worried smile. "I mean…yeah, I'd like a change of clothes and some food, but that's nothing. Where have you been? Where did you go?"

"My friends came for me," I said.

"Your friends…Henry and Conner, right?"

"Right," I nodded.

"Right." She smacked her lips. Then: "So…shot in the dark…you don't think they're coming for us now, do you?"

I couldn't lie to Hannelore. Not again. "No," I said truthfully. "I don't think so, this time." And I didn't mean to sound that defeated, honest.

The conversation died out after that. I lost track of where the two guards were taking us: every turn led to another set of stairs, leading to a fork in the road and a pair of doors and another steel corridor. We might as well have taken another elevator.

"This place spreads out under the entire city, doesn't it?" I asked. "That's how they've been creating Twilights anywhere, because they have access to everywhere."

"That makes sense," Hannelore agreed.

I mentioned how she was taking everything pretty well now, since the last time we were together, she could barely stand.

"Oh, that's the thing. I just have no idea what you're talking about anymore." She shrugged absentmindedly. "By the way…what's a Twilight?"

"Don't you ever stop talking?" One of the guards bellowed. We had come to our final destination: a room to our immediate left. The guards pushed us through, and for all of that build-up, we came to a room with two very lame-looking prison cells. The shining steel bars stretched down from the ceiling and through to the floor, with the standard door, and a smaller door next to it connected to a shelf. For food, most likely.

"A cot and a toilet out in the open," I mused. "Just what the doctor ordered."

"This isn't for you," growled the surlier of the two guards. By that, I mean he had a beard and slightly bulkier pectorals. "The other one stays here. You go with the Nerd-Alerts down the hall."

In other words, time to get dissected. "Great."

The men pried Hannelore off of me with enough force to tame a wild Ursaring. Once we were separated, it only took one of them to heave Hannelore's thin body off the ground, walk her to her cell, and drop her in it while the door closed.

"I'll be fine," I said while Hannelore got her bearings. "I'm right down the hall."

Both guards led me out of Hannelore's room-which-held-her-room and back into the corridor. It was another twist—just the one, to the left, I made sure to remember!—and through a series of doors with that ominous 'biohazard' warning on glass panel. Two pairs of hands pushed me through and into what was supposed to be a sterile environment: men and women in white lab coats with goggles and gloves hurried around with clipboards and stern expressions.

The surly goon (which is a good name for a pub) snapped at an alarmed scientist (which is a good name for a punk song).

"The contaminated girl, right," said Alarmed Scientist. "Leave her with us. Tell the Minister we are proceeding as scheduled."

Surly Guard threw a menacing stare my way, and then both he and his less-manly-but-still-manly partner were gone.

Alarmed Scientist and I realized at the same time that I could probably run away. But immediately after, and again simultaneously, we noticed that I had nowhere to go. Really…where would I _go_?

"Follow me," Alarmed Scientist said with all the enthusiasm of a speech program. "We have your container prepared."

"My container," I repeated.

A stinging noise sounded over the loudspeakers. I reached for my headphones, but alas, they were somewhere in the rubble of my old home.

"Those buffoons are back?" Alarmed Scientist waddled back to the 'biohazard'-y doors. "They must have forgotten to bring the other one." He pressed a button along a panel on the wall, and the locks clicked back with a metal 'clank'.

Before I could pleasantly inform Alarmed Scientist that Hannelore isn't going to be dissected, and so that couldn't be the reason said goons were returning, the universe showed its love for the Samantha Show.

…Or technically, Hammo the Tepig did.

Alarmed Scientist shot back like a rocket, crashing into the wall and hanging limp while Hammo backflipped from his still body and onto the floor, snout flared. Before the other whitecoats could even hit a panic button—hopefully—Hammo huffed a cloud of noxious fumes from his nostrils.

"Breathe through this," Henry said, suddenly standing behind me and holding his white beanie cap to my mouth and nose. "Unless you want to breathe in Stun Spore, anyway."

We stood there for ten or so seconds while the Alarmed Scientists Two, Three, and Four collapsed under Hammo's technique. The cloud hadn't settled completely when Henry removed the beanie from my face and put it back on his head. "The worst is done," Henry said. He circled the room quickly. "We need to keep moving. Amber bought us some time, but…well, it's _some_ but not enough."

This was a Henry I had never seen before. Through the many battles and tight spots, Henry had always been the calm, easy-going one. He and Hammo traded a confirming glance, and then we were back through the doors and into the hallway. I almost didn't follow. "Sam, follow me! We still have to find your sister, there's time if we go now."

"Okay, okay," I said. "I'm just…Well…"

"What?" He yelled, almost crossing from alarmed-Henry to angry-Henry. An emotion that, to this day, I do not believe exists in that boy. "Is something coming? Do you know something?"

Samantha C finally spoke her peace. "You came for me," she drawled.

"Of course we did," Henry said. Totally missing the point. He explained: Amber made a plan with them to storm the castle today, regardless of what I wanted.

"We knew you wouldn't like it," Henry said. He nodded to something past me, and Hammo ran to Henry's side. "Sorry about that."

I felt my cheeks flare up. Not only did I have friends, plural…I had friends who knew me well enough to plan things around me, in my best interest.

"We should find Pika first," Henry moved on. And when he caught my brief shock: "Hannelore is down the hall in a holding cell, right? Amber's dad won't kill her; she's leverage."

"That's reassuring," I groaned. We started jogging down the hall, away from Hannelore's cage-within-a-room. Henry and Hammo turned their heads with mechanical frequency.

"It was Conner's idea," Henry said. "If we have Pika, you have your firepower back."

That _was_ a good point.

The hall ended at another nondescript fork. Henry pushed both of us against the right side and stared over the corner, both ways. He removed his cell phone from his back pocket and quickly pressed the center button: a veritable mural of thick lines and details covered the screen.

"Blueprints?" I asked incredulously. "Not that I'm not happy you have them, but Conner's going to get himself in prison for life—"

"Conner didn't find them," Henry said quickly. He quickly amended: "Okay, that's bull. He downloaded programs in Amber's phone that found the blueprints and sent them to us. It's technically not stealing from the government…Technically."

"Technically," I agreed.

"The coast is clear. Let's move." Henry tugged my wrist again, and we were jogging again. Whatever adrenaline I had used in my battles to this point was entirely drained. I felt every heave and…well, I'd never look at a Cheeto puff the same way again.

Two shifty turns later and we found an escalator. He pulled us to the foot of it, and we both stared down the descending metal stairs with hesitation.

"You know where this leads, right?" I asked.

"According to these prints, it's the main R&D room." He flicked his thumb across the screen, then enlarged the image with that 'pinch' gesture from the commercials. "We'll be directly under the main atrium…Which is pretty bad."

"Dare I ask…why?"

"Well, the main atrium is the room the elevator led you to. Amber and her family should still be inside. They'll see us if anything goes wrong."

"Lovely." Then, thanks to Samantha A's worrying: "Where's Conner in all of this?"

"If he is where he should be?" Henry said with a tangible amount of doubt. "He'll be just getting there, after entering from the Route 16 emergency entrance."

I took a shaky breath.

"We go in, we find Pika, and then it's up to the atrium to rescue Amber from her family," Henry recited, probably more for his benefit than mine. "And while everything's blowing up, we get up here and break out your sister. Best case scenario, we bring this place down like any other Dome."

"Like any other Dome," I repeated.

He laughed a hollow laugh, throwing his head back and pulling his beanie down over his eyes. "Of course, the worst case scenario is all of us ending up dead.

"How's that for irony? We sack all of those Unseen, and humans just wreck us. Conner would love it."

"That's also lovely," I sighed.

We went quiet again, both of us reflecting on the escalator leading so far down, we couldn't even see the landing point from here. Both of us reflecting on how far we had come to get to this point, how much we had struggled…How much we would have to struggle if this ended right…

I started to wonder: if I had never come here, and if I had just lived with the Boss, would I have been any better off than if—

"I'll miss these," Henry said with a grin.

"Miss what?"

"These awkward silences," he said, waving his pointer finger between us. "I got used to them. I think I'll miss them once this is all done."

"After this is all done."

"You know, would it hurt you to not just parrot me?" Henry groaned. "Give me some comfort, Sam. I'm pouring my heart out, here."

I wanted to say something. Honest, I did.

Sure, a part of me wanted to just go down that escalator into the unknown and let the boy that turned me down _rot_ in his fright. But I wasn't that girl, and I was never that girl. Back in Saffron City, when everyone thought the worst of me and I gave them no reason to think otherwise, and here in Goldenrod City with my friends and my sister, I was many things…but I wasn't that girl. I was never mean.

"I'm scared," I said truthfully. "So I can't tell you anything you want to hear, Henry. I can't."

I folded my hands and almost moved for the escalator—

Henry's took my hand and held it. Not like before, either: he straight-up waffled our fingers, and just to drive it home, he kissed the back of my hand.

I couldn't meet his gaze, but when I stared at his feet, Hammo was smiling, too. Cursed bond! Cursed Amber hinting that maybe Henry actuall…I'm not finishing that sentence…

"See, that's all I needed," he said. "You get to be the scared one."

"I _get_ to be scared."

He nodded. "Yep. And then I get to be brave for you."

…Maybe he wasn't so oblivious..?

Damnit, lungs! We talked about not letting Henry light you on fire!

"I'm okay with this," I managed. But only barely.

"Good to know."

And then we were standing together on the metal staircase, sinking down into darkness.

But when Henry turned and kissed me, I became lighter than the heavens themselves.

* * *

Two more to go.


	13. My Family

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

- "My family."

Henry and I embraced the entire way down, and my fantasies of first kisses with boys were all vilified, verified, dashed, destroyed and made perfect all at once. He wrapped his hands around my hips and pulled me close, fingers pressing into the muffin top I hated every day of my life, and wanted me closer than that. He didn't let me go for a solid minute, and I could hear nothing but the beating of our hearts and the incessant droning of the escalator.

How's that for symbolic?

We pushed away as the escalator slowed and came to an end. He kept his hand in mine, and even though it was back to business, I felt changed.

I was changed, I knew. In more ways that I yet realized, this world I lived in had changed me. Or maybe I was always different, but it took this experience to show me what my life could be. Or something else philosophical. I was kind of busy, to tell the truth.

Henry and I huddled against the wall where it jutted out just past the escalator, Hammo sandwiched between our feet.

Were we going to talk about how Henry turned me down, and was suddenly saving my life and kissing me..?

Of course not!

"I found Pika," Henry said gravely.

"That's good, right?" I perked up. "That's one step down."

His face told a different story, though. "I…hm. You should probably see this for yourself."

"That doesn't sound good," I said dubiously.

"Trust me, it's not." Henry pushed me in front of him. He didn't think I noticed how he put his hands around me again. I wasn't about to complain, at any rate. I peeked over the edge of the wall and got a look at the final set piece of my story—past, present, and future included.

Henry had been right: this was the facility I had seen from the main atrium. I spied the small room a good twenty, maybe thirty feet up on the wall. I could barely make out the moving shapes as humans with waving arms, but Amber's brilliant ribbon could be seen from a mile away. I felt a small, non-Henry-related grin spread over my face.

No matter how bad things were for Amber, our own situation had to be a gabillion times worse.

"It looks like they're onto us," I commented on the ten-ish goons standing in the main plaza area. Small room with clear glass walls lined the area, with each one housing several men in coats and computers with bizarre spreadsheets and data. Those painful flood lights from movies hung low over the area, bathing everything in this annoying white light. I put my hand over my brow to keep my retinas from imploding.

I scanned each of the small rooms, but I couldn't find my Pika-pal. "I don't see him," I told Henry.

"He's not in one of the rooms." He put his hands back around me, this time with his hands just a little lower than before, and twisted me a little further out. "You'll know it when you see it."

…And boy, did I.

The goons weren't just aimlessly hanging out in the center; they were protecting the Company's prime investment. Enough computer hardware to power a small college had been arranged around the wall, with men in button-down shirts typing away furiously at three, four keyboards at a time. I had wondered what that strange sound was, and figured it was the escalator. Wrong! It was a thousand monkeys tied to a thousand typewriters…or people, and computer keyboards. Same thing.

My eyes slowly turned upward. I couldn't have ignored the metal containers on the wall if I tried. Two pods long enough to be nukes had been plastered to the steel surface. Written across them in that menacing, science-y font in block letters: 'Unit 01' and 'Unit 00'.

And finally, in a small box underneath, was my friend Pika. Sound asleep and hooked up to a ton of wires, but otherwise okay.

My first reaction: Huzzah! Pika's okay. Plus, we know where they're keeping Celebi. All we have to do is break Pika out, get up to Amber, meet up with Conner, rescue Hannelore, and come back for Celebi.

My reaction point-zero-five seconds later: "We're screwed."

"That's what I figured," Henry said, pulling me back. I think I surprised him when I turned in his hands and was suddenly pressing my body into his.

"You blush," I said.

"And you giggle like a schoolgirl."

"Hey, you're the one who can't keep his hands to himself—and this is _not_ the time." I pushed my hands onto Henry's chest to break us up for now. For the record: touching a boy's chest won't make you forget about him. Quite the opposite, really. "I don't suppose we can just rush in there, can we?"

"Nah," Henry shook his head. "Conner and I had to fight one of those guards on the ceiling. Their Pokemon have this weird armor on…I figured it would slow them down, but I've never seen anything move that fast."

"Anything besides Hammo or Staravia, right?"

Henry regarded me with suspicious eyes. "Right…How did you know that?"

"I had to fight one," I told him. "The prototype, most likely."

"You had to fight one and Pika ended up a lab rat." Then: "No offense, I'm just saying. We're out of options."

Henry leaned against the wall and knocked his head once, twice. "We got this far," he told himself. "There has to be something."

There had to be. I wouldn't dare say it, but guards could see us from here, and every second we spent was borrowed time. We were cornered. All the enemy had to do was come find us—

Henry noticed something just past my head. He pulled me close and drew us to the ground, screaming: "Get down!"

I've seen a few explosions by now, but this one was in closed space. Debris flew directly for us. Smoke stained the air. I felt the ground seriously shake under our weight. Henry pulled my head into his shoulder, cradling me while the metal shards flew.

The sounds of chaos are always worse when you can't see what's happening. I shut my eyes when the smoke started to sting, but Henry held my arms down and I couldn't cut out the sound of Pokeballs opening, of glass shattering, and the familiar sound of flesh hitting steel and stone.

"Henry!" I tried to yell, but the next collision started a domino effect, and the entire facility was an exploding glass attraction.

Then, the voice that had comforted me from beginning to end in his own way—

"Prime Minister McCall!"

"Conner?!" Henry untangled from me and got to his feet. Hammo had huddled beside us, and outside of the cuts and scrapes we all had, he seemed unharmed. Henry left me and ran to the edge of our hiding spot, willing himself to go but knowing he had to stay. "What is he _doing_?!"

I opened my eyes, scrambled to my feet with my scraped jeans and cut-up sweater sleeves, and went to Henry's side.

The scene belonged in a bad summer blockbuster: machines ablaze, rubble and dust and debris galore, the goons collapsed and the engineers running, and in the center: Conner and Staravia, its wings extended gallantly.

David's voice echoed from all around us, except with an element of static, courtesy of the Conner Demolition Crew. "You must be truly mad to attack your superiors," he cooed.

Conner pushed his glasses further up his nose. "I could say the same," he said lamely. "I have a deal to make with your daddy, David. Is he home?"

Amber's laugh from inside the atrium echoed over the loudspeaker.

"I call the shots here," David said, his patience waning. "Tell me why I'm not having my guards tear your limbs apart. I don't recall I had a reason."

"That's simple. I have a prototype Celebi Ball, man-made. If you kill me, you lose that knowledge, and you lose your monopoly on the resistance technology." He stared up into the atrium, his eyes like daggers through the metal exterior. "Unless I am mistaken, and you truly aren't a borderline-syndicate evil."

I couldn't get over how _clean_ Conner was. Had Staravia torn its enemies apart without so much as a scratch?

It occurred to me, I had never actually fought alongside Conner. I'd seen Hammo and Lili at their full power, but Staravia always hung back. Conner wouldn't even let it out when he sat at home. I figured, I was now seeing the reason.

Conner was the strongest of us…strong enough to wipe out the enemy and make a deal with them.

David clicked the loudspeaker off for a moment. When he resumed, I detected a hint of panic. "Wait there. I will see you."

"I'm waiting," Conner sang. The loudspeaker clicked off again. I turned my attention to the atrium: a smaller elevator descended from its base, coming slowly to meet us on the ruined ground floor.

Henry slammed his hand against the wall, jolting me out of Conner-inspired awe.

"I can't let him do this," he scolded himself. "He'll get himself killed, but…If we go out there, we're boned, too.

"I'm the fearless leader. I need to come up with a plan. Think, Henry. Think!"

The elevator landed with a slow, grinding stop. Conner put a hand in his pocket and rested the other on the belt loop of his pants. The opaque elevator doors zipped open, and out walked the whole family. David McCall front and center, sister Amber by his side (and held by two guards, go Amber!), and finally Old Man McCall himself.

Amber and her father waited by the elevator while David approached Conner, leaving enough space between them for inevitable combat.

"Sam," Henry begged, his fists balled and his eyes shut. "What do I do?"

"You have my family's attention," David said. He was exactly the same right now as he had been yesterday, full of grand motions and that general I-can-buy-and-sell-you attitude. And I _defended_ this guy once! Gah!

Conner removed his hand from his pocket. The prototype Celebi Ball rested in his palm, just as I remembered. Duller colors, cheaper plating and a dimmer center lock, but still functional.

"I want a deal," Conner announced.

"Enlighten me."

"With pleasure. I give you my prototype, as well as any and all related information. In exchange, you let me and my friends walk out of here today. We want full amnesty from the Johto government as well."

David's eyebrows flew up. "Why would you seek that? You're no better than terrorists, breaking into our base and attacking our soldiers."

"We didn't know any better," Conner said. "We believed we were fighting an alien dimension, not our government. This is all a misunderstanding."

David's laugh twisted my stomach in knots. "That's your excuse. 'We didn't know any better.' And you intend to buy me out with that…_thing_." David pointed at the prototype, and I swear, Conner's anger visibly rose. "This was your bright idea?"

"That, or Staravia and I can peel the flesh from your bones. Your move, but I'd prefer to end this amicably."

"Amicably," David repeated. "End this…amicably."

David's gesturing hand reached into his inside jacket pocket. "Conner, right?" He asked, his voice feigning cheer. "Let me tell you how this is going to go."

The Master Ball was out and breaking open before I knew to run to him. When I did, Henry pulled me—this time without any of that fun caressing business—and restrained me by the wall.

It was too fast: Staravia flew up fifty feet to the ceiling and crashed, _hard_, with the wave of Unit 03's limp, armored hand. Chunks of steel and stone fell around Conner and David, exposing deep brown earth and iron support beams. Unit 03 dragged its hand down like a swift conductor, and Staravia slammed against the ground, breaking apart tile and screaming, agony gripping its voice.

The sound of bones snapping was nothing next to Conner's deep, guttural wail. He collapsed immediately, his body contracting into the fetal position and shaking.

"Conner!" Amber yelled out. The guards at her side gripped her shoulders hard, pushing her back to her father's side.

…David was _laughing_.

"See, the bond works both ways, but I've never had the pleasure of seeing that firsthand," he said. "Samantha never bonded with Pika through the Celebi Ball, so the twisting despair was absent from her defeated expression. But you, Conner…"

Unit 03 lifted its other arm, and Staravia hovered in the air, its body shrouded in a sinister purple glow.

"You will give me your prototype, of course," David said. "Then, you will join my sister's unfortunate friends in serving a sentence _under_ the prison, until you turn eighteen. You will then be tried for crimes against the state and, by extension, against the United Nations. You'll _wish_ you died in the impending Lillycove City massacre.

"I'll guarantee it.

"But unlike Samantha and Henry, who are content with hiding by the elevator…"

That's just peachy.

"…You chose to attack us. You chose to be a national traitor, and you will be rewarded, as a traitor deserves."

Unit 03 rotated its wrists, and Staravia wailed again, moaning as its body tore apart from psychic energy. Conner's body convulsed on the floor now, his back craning and his legs kicking out from under him. If he was begging for Conner to stop, I couldn't make the words out. These were just sounds now, sounds no human being should ever be pushed to.

I felt my breakfast come up—

"David, _no!_"

Amber moved with purpose. She drove her heel straight into a guard's foot, making him wince, but only just. It was enough: Amber jumped up and knocked him in the jaw with her skull, and down the guard went. She ripped herself free from the other guard's single hold and ran across the battlefield, skipping the debris and jumping over wreckage, to come to Conner's side. Staravia dropped lifelessly, bones poking out in odd directions and its eyes barely blinking.

This was the signal.

More than a signal: this was our last stand, as the Three Musketeers plus Sam.

Amber faced down David and Unit 03, her Celebi Ball out and her battle stance set, red ribbon flowing in the carnage.

David sighed, unimpressed. "Baby sister, please."

Then, her father: "Amber, this is silly. I told you before, your friends brought this on themselves. You cannot stand against your family—"

"No," Amber said, her cheeks streaming tears from the sight of Conner's broken body. "You are _not_ my family. You're just the man that married my mother. And _you_," she pointed the Celebi Ball at David. "You're just rotten. Inside and out…You're so thoroughly up your own ass, it's depressing.

"Conner is my family.

"Samantha and Henry…they've taken care of me. They've been by my side this entire time, while you've orchestrated war.

"And you think," Amber became hysterical, struggling for breath. "You think you can just come in here and do this to _my _family?!

"You'll have to get through me, and by God, I wish you luck."

David and her father were, for the first time, stunned into silence. The guards scrambled to the feet and, I kid you not, ran for the nearest exit. Hell hath no fury like an Amber scorned.

In that moment, something crossed Mr. McCall's swollen, aged face. A look of remorse, or perhaps understanding, that his daughter would turn arms against him. A father's worst nightmare.

David, though…David was a monster.

"You've had friends before," David said laconically. "Mandy was fun to break. Let's see how long it takes you to break as well...Unit 03!"

"Hammo, _now!_ Flame charge!"

Henry's opening!

Hammo flew from our spot, engulfed in a plume of fire and en route for the armored abomination. Unit 03 was ready for action: it turned its arms to Hammo in-transit, stopping him in midair.

It was Amber's turn. Her Celebi Ball broke open in the air, and Lili's vine arms raced out for Unit 03. The behemoth charged at attack, but just as David knew, that was its only weakness—

_Bam!_ Vine whip to the face! Unit 03 was down on its ass, its metal plating scraping the bare gravel floor. David staggered back, barely catching himself and breaking into a film of sweat.

—My turn.

I ran out with Henry, our hands parting as I went for Pika, far by the towering pods across the room.

Each step filled with purpose.

Running, not for myself, but for my sister. My sister who took me in when I had nowhere else to go, whom I had placed in harm's way, and whom I loved with all my heart.

For Conner, who was brave until the very end, and for Henry, who came to save me and fought to protect me, no matter what.

For Amber and Lucy, my two very best friends.

For the Chief, the Boss, Mr. McCall, Ms. Yoon, Mr. Polsky and any other scumbags I'm forgetting—

"I don't think so, little girl!" Mr. McCall screamed. "Guards!"

Pokeballs cracked open behind me, but I was a leaf on the wind. Pika lay limp in his broken glass cage, and I needed him to wake up. Lili and Hammo were strong, but not strong enough. Pika, wake _up—_

He blinked his tiny beady eyes, perked that one ear like he always did, and bounced back to life. First on his hind legs, then on all fours, and then he was charging his cheeks and shooting the glass cage apart. Shards flew for me, but it didn't matter—

"Sam!" Henry yelled for me. "Sam, _no!_"

I channeled my inner baseball player and broke into a slide. Pika jumped to me and landed in my chest, his wires tearing out as he left the cage, and I embraced him as I slid down under the purple Psywave strike.

It missed…and hit right between Unit 01 and Unit 00.

It happened quickly, according to Henry, but in my mind, it was slow as molasses. The metal tubes slid the tiniest bit from the wall…and then burst apart entirely, the metal plates falling right onto Pika and me.

So many voices screamed my name…and then I heard another voice. One I never wanted to hear again—

…

"Samantha…welcome home."

Everything vanished.

Or rather, everything failed to exist. Ceased to exist, never _did_ exist.

The facility, the destruction, my cuts and scrapes and the bundle of Pika in my arms…it was all gone. I stood in a place worse than hell: my living room, back in Saffron City.

I was too terrified to move. Everything was clean, meticulously wiped down and sparking from the sunlight in the windows, just as it had never been. This wasn't my old home, it couldn't be. It was uncanny valley to the extreme, a simulation of my old world.

I eyed the Boss's glass on the kitchen counter.

Imagine my surprise when the Boss himself walks from the kitchen, takes the glass, and fills it with bourbon from the cabinet. Dressed in his work attire of a suit and styled hair, he was the same man I knew in my darkest memories and my worst nightmares. That strong jaw that I never inherited, those stoic shoulders and that heartless smile…

I could only manage one word. "No." Over and over again: "No, no, no…no. No!"

"No?" The Boss asked. "What's wrong, Samantha? I can't go very far off of 'no'. Elaborate, please."

The Boss smiled.

This was too much to take.

I backed up, slowly…and hit another body.

"Hannelore," I drawled. "How…you're still in…"

"There's a reason for that," Hannelore said. She was wearing her favorite outfit from when she lived with the Boss and me: boy shorts and a sweater. I got that look from somewhere, after all.

I glanced back at the Boss, then Hannelore.

I swallowed hard. "Am I dead?"

"Try again," the Boss laughed.

"Am I dreaming?"

"Close!" Hannelore raised a finger enthusiastically. She tilted her body to the right and looked over my shoulder to my father. "Can I tell her?"

"Go ahead," the Boss said laconically. He took a swig of booze, like he always did.

"Sam," Hannelore started, "I'm not your sister."

Then, at my look of shock: "And that's not your father," Hannelore pointed. "Your body is still in the facility underneath Goldenrod City. We have taken these appearances and brought you here, into a corner of your mind, in a way that will not frighten you.

My lungs started to come back to normal. Risk of cardiac arrest began to drop.

Hannelore beamed. And take _that_, teachers who said I was dumb, because I understood it right away.

"You're Unit 01," I said slowly. "Celebi. You're Celebi."

Hannelore nodded.

One down. I turned and faced the Boss, who had come into the living room with his glass. "That makes you…Unit 00."

"Right on both accounts," the Boss said. "Though I don't suppose you know what Pokemon I am?"

I babbled.

"It's a trick question," Hannelore said. "He isn't a Pokemon from this dimension. He is my counterpart in the world beyond your world…If I am the protector of light in this reality, then he is the Dark One."

…Yeesh.

"From a world which the Unseen destroyed," the Boss continued. "When my dimension ended, I fled to the nearest one…and met my counterpart."

Hannelore and the Boss stopped and smiled at me. "I guess this makes sense," I prodded. It was a ninety-percent fib, but I didn't want to tell them that. This was too weird. "What's this have to do with me?"

"That _is_ the question," the Boss said. "But first, you have to understand."

He began walking in a circle around us, cradling the glass with his pinky finger underneath, all classy-like. "Your species is on the brink of a war that it will not recover from. We—my colleague and I—have seen your future. This World War with Hoenn will birth a Twilight without end. The Unseen will claim your reality. This was fact."

I was too exhausted for shock. "Okay, sure," I played along.

"We saw this future, and my colleague decided to intervene. I, however, carried with me anger at my home world. The Unseen were not to be trifled with…why would another world of humans willingly _choose_ our fate?

"I had to understand."

"And I," Hannelore said behind me, "Am nothing if not curious, Sam. Humans have always puzzled me, love them though I do."

"We proposed a wager," the Boss continued. "To discover the heart of this species that would doom itself. We put ourselves on Earth, each with our own pieces on the chessboard.

"Your guardian, Celebi, stood on your side. Providing you with its own Pokeballs and bond powers, striving to prove that you humans were not damned like mine, that you could avert this fate.

"And I, meanwhile, stood on the side of history. Providing humans with access to my energy, which, when mixed with that of my colleague, would create the Twilight. Which would end humans, as it had before.

"We gave both sides their tools, and from our pods in the Company lab, watched history unfold."

The Boss nodded to Hannelore. It was a dance: the Boss froze behind me, and now Hannelore was walking in a circular pattern. "Samantha, you are not here by chance."

"I figured as much," I said, not-quite jokingly.

"I'll be clear, then," Hannelore said. "You're here because you are the wild card. You are in this situation by chance, but your moves have been calculated, until now."

"The wild card," I repeated. "Funny…I thought we were randomly chosen. Sensitive, or whatever…right?"

"I chose your friends very carefully," Hannelore lectured. "Amber fights for human compassion; Henry fights for human love; Conner fights for human understanding. They represent, in their own ways, everything about the human race that justifies its continued existence in a broken universe.

"But I do not understand _you_.

"You, who were given my emergency Celebi Ball, which was only meant as a back-up in case my three heroes lost one of theirs.

"You, who became sensitive just as a Pikachu from my colleague's world did the same.

"_You_, Samantha Hutchinson, who forged a bond with a Pokemon without my aid."

"It's not impossible," the Boss commented. The sensation of his voice booming over my head brought back more than a few unpleasant memories. "Before my world ended, humans and Pokemon were suddenly _unable_ to bond. The inverse happening here may as well be history unfolding, as I knew it would."

Hannelore glared at the Boss. Though unlike they had in the past…this one had a backstory I could never fully understand. Who was I to understand a battle of Pokemon Gods?

Hannelore returned to me. "Samantha Hutchinson, you are here because history is now, officially, in your hands."

"No pressure," I said to nobody.

"And before you take charge of our game for its own ends, we must know," Hannelore gestured to the Boss and herself. "What are you about?"

…I had sat through a ton of bizarre classes in my day, but that just made _zero_ sense.

"What my colleague means," the Boss joined Hannelore and stood facing me, two Gods with two bodies from my memories. "Is to ask…what do you _want_ from this? What do you symbolize?"

I repeated the question. "What do I want..?"

"For example," Hannelore opened her palms to me. "Henry wants to train Pokemon. Amber wants, more than anything, for her family to be restored. Conner simply wants to live for himself.

"In contrast, David McCall desires nothing but his own pleasures. Archibald McCall, their father, craves the status he lost in his marriage. These are the desires that have brought the world to this point in time.

"Samantha…what do _you_ want?"

That one was easy. "I want them to be okay, really. My friends."

"Just them?" The Boss prodded.

I remembered: I'm talking to _Gods_, here. Pick your words more carefully, Sam. "Not just them…everyone I've been fighting for."

"So, your entire species, generically, should be simply 'okay'?" The Boss said, unimpressed.

I shook my head fiercely. "No, that's not it either!"

"Take your time," Hannelore said comfortingly.

Why did I get the feeling the world's fate was riding on my answer? I never was a solid public speaker, just like everyone in eighth grade Public Speaking was made painfully aware of…

I started panicking. Again.

This wasn't how things were supposed to go! I was supposed to go back and fight David, not answer for the human race with two super-dieties that—

"There's no need to be afraid," Hannelore cooed. "Be still."

"I'm not doing anything—"

"We are in your mind," said the Boss. "We can sense your anxiety. I assure you, your answer does not play a part in the fate of your friends."

I took a deep breath, wrung my hands out and stretched my arms, McCall-family-style. "You're sure?" I asked dubiously. "I can say what I want, and you guys won't go postal or something?"

Suddenly, I was made very aware of which being was on my side, and which was not. Hannelore laughed, then put a finger to her mouth and simply smiled. The Boss, meanwhile, drained his bourbon and stared straight through me.

"Fair enough," I said.

I gathered my thoughts. And—

"You guys are in my head, right? So, you've seen what I've been through to get here. My crazy dad, my absent grandma and dead mom, one friend, and a lie for every Cheeto, which is quite a lot."

Hannelore nodded along.

"When I first left Saffron, I thought I would get a fresh start. I really did…but I was just bringing myself to a new place. Wherever I went, there I was.

"I messed up Hannelore's life. And I made new friends, but they were all just like me, and I think we fed off of our own negativity, at least a little bit."

The Boss held his empty hand out. The bourbon bottle materialized in his grasp, and he poured himself another glass of maple liquid. At least the Dark One knew how to play the role right.

"I really don't think today will solve anything," I spoke my truth. "We'll go to school, me and Henry, and he'll hate his dad and I'll be an outcast. Amber will have her mother, and that's a long stretch. Conner…I don't know what Conner has to look forward to on a normal day, to be honest."

"So you're saying it was all pointless?" the Boss said triumphantly.

I shook my head in defiance. "Not at all. Henry told me that we have too many responsibilities to go after what we want. Once this is done…I want that chance. For all of us. Hannelore, too. And Lucy…and even the Boss, and my teachers and bullies.

"I want us to have the chance to be happy." Then, to be sure: "That's what I want. That's what I'm about."

The world went white. My body vanished, along with my living room and my family. I was floating on nothing, a thought lost in a blank void.

The voices of Hannelore and the Boss merged into an alien sound, uttering one comment on my thesis for mankind.

"…Interesting choice."

…

"Sam!"

I had feet again!

And that unmistakable heat wave, coupled with the distinct smell of Sweating Samantha and the bundle of yellow fur in my arms.

I flashed my eyes open. Henry had turned his attention back to me, but the battle had gone on for too long already. Unit 03 floated above the ground, as usual, but its armor had more than a few plates missing and wires severed. On the other side of no man's land, Amber clutched her shoulder and struggled for breath as Lili maintained a fighting stance. At a second look, David wasn't so hot himself: he looked like a strung-up corpse, drenched in sweat with his jaw hanging lopsided.

The metal plates of Unit 01 and Unit 00 lay around me. It was almost—cough—divine intervention: the pods had shattered and the metal contraptions formed a perfect circle around me and Pika.

Conner lay on the ground, barely conscious. Parallel to him on David's side was Mr. McCall, his statuesque expression twisted as his plan crashed and burned…

I was back.

And it was time to work.

Pika read my mind: he bounced out of my arms and onto the ground, battle ready.

Unit 01—Hannelore, or Celebi, or whatever—had said we were bonded without the Celebi Ball.

In other words…I could take David this time. _We_ could take David.

He saw me coming, too. David leered past his wounded sister, flat-out ignored her hurt friend, and bore his eyes into me.

Scary face? Sorry, David. It's not very effective. I joined Amber and Henry's side.

I didn't necessarily _mean_ to pose like them, with that knee bent and arms out stance…but for the first time, it felt right.

"Sam_an_tha!" David crooned. "Father! Samantha is back!"

Mr. McCall saw what David didn't: that this was a lost cause. "We are leaving now, David. The shuttle is waiting."

"And where are we supposed to _go?_" David whipped his head around at his father. "Our beach house in Unova? Or maybe that ski resort in Sinnoh?

"We will _not_ retreat," David sneered. "My sister needs to learn a lesson."

"I'd back off if I were you," I told David calmly. "We can be here all day, but if I were you…"

"You're _not_," David spat. "You know nothing about me, or my family. You are a stain on the underside of my shoe, a byproduct of suburban breeding left unchecked. _I _am important."

"You're also dramatic, David." Then, to Pika: "Ready, pal? Let's end this."

"If you think you can," David sang.

* * *

One foot in front of the other...


	14. I need you

Samantha and the Golden Boy

…

Final— "I need you."

"Pika, volt tackle!"

"I showed you before, girl, that won't _work_!"

Pika charged for Unit 03, adrenaline coursing through its veins like gasoline. Unit 03 raised its arm, and I briefly gave credit where credit was due: Lili had swiped its glove off and tossed it. The underlying Mewtwo hand was scarred and singed…What had these people done to it?

I mentally apologized. It wasn't Unit 03's fault that I had to do this. And yet, it had to be done—

Pika jumped and twisted, igniting its body in blue electricity and readying itself for the strike. Like clockwork, Pika lit up purple and slowed for a fraction of a second—

"Magical leaf!" Amber bellowed.

Lili leapt into the fray, spreading her arms out and spinning at terminal velocity. Its own purple leaves shot forth, slicing the armor and peeling off the plating like a piece of fresh fruit. Two leaves hit home, slashing Unit 03's hand and causing it to pull back and cradle the hurt. David seemed unfazed.

Pika crashed into Unit 03 with all of his might, and let me say…this time, David was not so suave.

First came the bloodied screams, _then_ the body convulses. Mr. McCall ran—well, wobbled—to his hurt scumbag of a son. David fell back against the old man, and down they went.

Pika circled Unit 03, making sure that the battle was done. At his side, Hammo and Lili waited patiently, enduring their wounds but seeing the cause through nonetheless.

Mr. McCall brushed the sticky-with-sweat hair from David's forehead. "My boy," Mr. McCall began to sob. "My boy, my beautiful boy…"

Then, inevitably, he rounded on Amber. "_You_ did this. Look at him."

"Dad—"

"_Look at him!_" He screamed, his powerful voice bouncing off the walls and piercing our eardrums. "Look at your brother. At my son…"

What happened next should go down in the history of 'man, that's _cold_' moments. Amber turned back, went toward Conner, and lifted him onto his feet while her blood-relative brother died on the blasted tile floor. Henry came to her side and lifted Conner's other arm over his shoulder.

There they were: Celebi's Army. Which would have been a great name if Conner had come up with it sooner.

Henry pulled Conner's Celebi Ball from his friend's pocket and pointed it at the scary-still Staravia spread out behind us. The mighty fowl returned in a flash of crimson light. "We've got you," Henry said gently. "We've got you."

"Good to know," Conner managed. Lili and Hammo retired to their Celebi Balls as well. Exhausted warriors taking their earned rest.

My attention pulled back to Unit 03.

Pika had perked his ears up and turned full focus towards the monstrosity. Bond works both ways, huh?

Mewtwo stood on the floor, wiggling its hand and its freed limbs. With the wave of one uncaring hand, its armor plates assumed the familiar violet glow, hovered for a fraction of a second and then…well, they were gone. Its armor shrank so fast, the plates almost seemed to vanish from thin air.

This was the power of a legendary Pokemon: capable of wiping out human science without effort.

Nobody dared speak as the infamous titan watched us. It stared at Pika first, then at the others and myself. Whatever it wanted, it didn't find in us. Mewtwo raised up and hovered on its tail.

At Mewtwo's formidable glare, Mr. McCall was paralyzed. He struggled to stand, but the old man couldn't lift himself and his catatonic son.

Mewtwo raised a hand—

This was wrong. Mewtwo may have been imprisoned and tormented by these people, but I couldn't just stand here and let Amber's father die.

…Could I?

Was he my responsibility?

If this were the Boss, and Amber were capable of saving his life…would she?

I watched Amber carefully. She stayed glued to her position. The conflict was evident as her eyes shifted and her lip trembled. Amber had made her choice, and she had raised a hand to her own father. But to let him be killed in cold blood..?

In retrospect, only humans can be so conflicted, so _flawed_ that we can justify patricide. Gods have no such qualms.

They were only bright lights to us, but I recognized them instantly. Celebi soared past my shoulder as a ball of white light, glowing vividly like a distant star. Just behind it flew a sphere of black night, one that warped the images around it in my vision, clouding all it came near. The Dark One, naturally.

Mewtwo raised both its hands to Mr. McCall and his son. Its eyes glowed purple, the end was eminent—

The structure _quaked_. The four of us were thrown to our hands and knees as Units 00 and 01 materialized, only for a moment, to block their cousin experiment's onslaught. Out of the corner of my vision, I saw what I knew from pictures to be Celebi's true form, small and green and round and kind. I wanted to see the Dark One, but—

"Sam?" Henry said shakily. "I think we need to get out of here." Then, dead-serious: "Really, like _now_."

I understood what Henry meant, just as Conner and Amber had. We knew what this sudden green tint upon the world meant.

When the Unseen began materializing from the ground, first a pair, then an octuplet—which I think is a word—of shadows surrounded Mewtwo. They sprouted limbs fast. Like the Unseen back at Trainer School, these ones meant business.

Mewtwo recognized a challenge. It spread its arms out, then assumed only what I could imagine was a battle stance—

Mild tangent. Don't you hate it when you assume wrong?

By extension, don't you hate it when Mewtwo isn't attacking, but is charging up its energy? Because you probably taught it how to do that with too many volt tackles?

I made a note to kick my face in.

I pulled my head down and rolled into a ball. Pika did the same, running toward my arms and bracing himself for impact. At the last second, I remembered to hold my ears before the cacophony of slaughtered Unseen dared to rupture my eardrums.

I peeked out from under my arms, and watched as more and more Unseen came up from the earth to battle Mewtwo. The shadows covered the ground now; anywhere, the jaws of death could come up and claim us. I didn't dare look for Amber's defenseless relatives.

_Samantha. _

The white ball floated in front of me, speaking into my mind at point-blank range.

"You again," I whispered.

_You have done well. This facility holds the knowledge of the Twilight, and with our experiment ended, this information must be lost. _

_I could not reason with him._

Now with urgency: _I can only buy you and your friends moments. Hurry, please! Bring them to me!_

What was it talking about—

The building was coming down. They were making a Twilight, and then they would take it down.

_Yes!_ Celebi responded.

"Thanks for the tip," I said aloud. I jumped to my feet, not caring about pesky Unseen anymore. I ran to my friends' side and offered my hands to Henry and Amber. They in turn pulled Conner to his feet.

"You guys need to go," I told them quickly and probably slurring my words. Forgive me, it's just the shock of talking to Gods.

"Yeah, thanks for the tip," Amber rolled her eyes. At a time like this, too! "How are we supposed to do that?"

The shining Unit 01 was at my shoulder, hovering at Pika's usual perch. The glow stung Henry and Amber's eyes. Henry shut them altogether; Amber squinted as though she were staring into the sun itself.

"What," Amber started. Then: "You know what? I don't want to know."

"Same," Henry said, failing to keep the fright from his tone.

I took my friends' hands again. "Touch the light. If I'm right, it'll get you guys out of here."

"That's fine, Sam," Henry rushed. "Let's do it. What are we waiting for?"

This was Amber's chance to save her brother and father. When she let the moment pass, I wasn't terribly surprised.

…My sister.

_Unseen have penetrated the complex. I cannot find her._

"New girl?" Amber asked. "What is it? What's wrong?"

_If you bring me to her, I can rescue your sister, but we are running out of time._

Hannelore.

"My sister," I said.

This time, both Henry and Amber were reading my thoughts. Even Conner, in his barely-conscious state, managed to shake his head.

"We're not leaving you," Amber yelled over the chaos.

"And you won't be. I have to find Hannelore. I know where she is, I'll be fine."

"Samantha, _no!_"

"You have to trust me," I said calmly. Calmly enough to shut up Amber, which is a feat to itself, as we all know.

Then, before Henry could do something stupid like try and save my life _again_: "You have to trust me."

I guided their hands to Celebi's light. Henry and Amber resisted, but they didn't pull their arms away, either.

"You'd better meet us outside," Amber said through a forced smile. "We're gonna need you out there."

And I need you, I thought.

No...I knew.

With a slight flash of white, no larger than the flash of a camera, my friends were gone. Pika and I stood alone.

It was the Village all over again. Unseen tearing up the world, and Pika and I waiting for Hannelore.

…Except this time, I was in control.

_Samantha, hurry!_

"Don't have to tell me twice!"

Pika and I raced with the wind. Arms peeked up from the exposed Earth as we put one foot in front of the other. Don't think about the burning in your muscles, Sam. Just put one foot in front of the other—

Jump over the arm, slide under the Unseen jaw, and get to the escalator.

Then it's one foot over the other, over the other, over the other, up the staircase that was so much shorter coming down than it was going up—

"This is the floor," I heaved. I put my hands on my knees to catch my breath, and Celebi's light hovered at my head, impatient. "I'm going, I'm going!"

_The Twilight is breaking down._

"I said, I'm hurrying!"

Celebi wasn't kidding about the breaking-down Twilight. The walls were changing from familiar puke-green to deep blue hues, and then the bases of the walls began to assume a deep crimson. Note to self: don't touch that!

"Left turn here," I narrated to myself, then: "Right turn here. Keep breathing, Sam. Keep breathing…

"Here!"

I found it! Hannelore's room! The door remained locked, and the wall twisted in a deep maroon—

"Pika, Thunderbolt!"

—A deep maroon which quickly blasted apart. I ran through the debris, cutting my face on the explosive shards and not giving one single, solitary damn about it.

The bars were still in place, warped though they were from the falling Twilight. Hannelore paced inside the cage, wringing her hair in her hands and shaking.

"Hannelore, if you've gone insane, I'm sorry!" I blurted out.

Her entire body snapped to attention. "Samantha!"

"That's me," I heaved. I was pretty sure one lung had collapsed by now. Curse you, Chester Cheeto!

Celebi's light floated to the center of the room, then squeezed itself between the bars of Hannelore's cell. My sister's hazel eyes reflected the white of Celebi's glow with reverence.

_Touch my energy! It has to be now!_

"…Sam?" Hannelore pointed a limp finger. "You're not going to tell me what this is, are you..?"

"It's about to save our lives. Touch it."

"Touch it?" Hannelore asked dubiously. "Are you—?"

_Now!_

"Yes! Hannelore, now!" I pulled my sister's hands through the bars and wrapped them around Celebi's light, Pika riding on my shoulder and wrapping his tiny Pikachu hands on my face.

"You need a bath, pal," I joked.

The world went white again, just like it had the first time I met Celebi—

_And this will be the last time we meet. I guarantee it. _

—And then I was on the sidewalk, back outside Goldenrod City Gym in the crowd of people, watching the iconic landmark sinking into the earth under its own mass. It was as though a hand were pulling the Gym from underneath, swallowing it whole. When it was gone, all that remained of Goldenrod's Gym was a crater in the middle of downtown, with the city's familiar legion of businessmen and women watching, confused.

Hands raced for me. One on my right shoulder, sweating and barely moving, but still there for me when I needed it. Another on my left, a red ribbon wrapped around its waist. Finally, two arms wrapping themselves around my waist. And Hannelore in front of me, holding my hands in hers.

I was out. I had made it.

_Our will is done…Let your will flow freely. _

The white ball rushed into the sky, a tiny, unassuming blip in the wide blue sky, followed quickly by a black dot.

Then they were gone…and I remained.

…

Two weeks after what our wide, wonderful Pokemon world was calling the Goldenrod Incident.

"Sam!"

I pulled my sheets up over my head. My new bedroom, in our loft in the Village, had twice as many windows in the same space. Even without Hannelore bellowing, or without Pika twitching his ear and tickling my face, I still couldn't sleep in. Stupid sun.

"_Sam!_" Then: "Your phone is blowing up. You're gonna be late!"

I meant to say words. They came out as a garbled mess that reminded me of a car engine.

The door swung open. Hannelore chucked my cell phone at me, and it hit me square in the ass. No, I'm not trying to lose weight. But cutting out Cheetos is the path to loving oneself, true story. I pulled a hand out of my covers and fumbled for the phone. I still didn't recognize it. Conner had given me a prototype from his new company. I could email anyone between both Johto and Kanto now, meaning no need for a global link or whatever.

I could also get in touch with grandma, which I had.

And I could get in touch with the Boss, which you could not _pay_ me to do.

Hannelore said that if he really wanted to hear from either of us, he could. But he hadn't, and so he wouldn't. And honestly, that was that.

New message: Lucy. 'I'm outside your building. Where are you?'

I paused for a moment. I let the sight of my second bedroom, the view of the Village from my scenic windows, and the always-comical ball of Pika-fur beside my pillows wake me up…

I recognized the packed duffel bag by my bookshelf. _Then_ I remembered!

I ran out into the hallway in my boyshorts and tank top, down the hall of our fancy new apartment complex, and to the front doors. This building didn't have a lobby, for the record, which meant no scumbaggy lobby ladies. Nothing gained, nothing lost.

Lucy leaned against the clear glass door, a backpack and a duffel at her feet. She still had her hair pulled into twin tails, but it had grown longer, long enough that she had wrapped the hair up into itself. A pink-and-white cap covered the middle of her head, with a few bangs poking out. When Lucy saw me approaching, she crumpled her bag of Cheetos and tossed them in the trash bin.

"Good morning, madam," Lucy said cheerily. "Someone slept well, apparently."

I pulled the door open. I made sure Lucy was turned the other way before scratching my rear. "Sorry! I'm packed and ready to go, I just need to get dressed."

"I was hoping so…You should probably shower, too."

"Hey!"

"No, you don't smell funny or anything. Just, believe me, finding a decent bathroom on the road is harder than _being_ on the road. Same goes for finding a decent hair salon."

"I can see that," I said. I didn't laugh until she did, and then we were laughing all the way back to my apartment.

Hannelore and Lucy waited in the living room while I showered, got dressed, and made peace with my new surroundings.

"I hate leaving already," I told Pika while I brushed my hair out. "I just got my bookshelf how I like it. _And_ I spent all that time getting Hannelore's hair out of the drain yesterday…"

Pika bounced on my duffel bag, grinning from ear to ear. I knelt down and scratched his head, then moved him off and slung the bag over my shoulder.

My passport rested in the usual spot. I gave myself a laugh over it.

I left my bedroom, fully dressed and fully packed.

"Dude!" Lucy drawled at our kitchen table. "Your sister is a baking _goddess_." She took another bite of the chocolate chip cookie and her eyeballs rolled back, then forward, then back _again_.

Hannelore untied her apron and rested it on a nearby chair. "You're very welcome, Lucy," she smiled. "With all my free time these days, I just kind of sit around and bake all day. Without Sam here to eat it all, I _might_ end up a bit pudgy."

"_Thanks_," I groaned.

Lucy pulled out a chair and flopped down. Hannelore watched both of us and smirked.

"So, Hannelore," Lucy started. "What do you do for a living, anyway?" Then, when I bopped her on the head: "Ow! Hey! It's a valid question!"

Hannelore smiled her perfect smile. The one I'd never have, but hey, I have Hannelore herself. Close enough. "I don't really know yet…I'm thinking of applying to work again, but it's not like I _have_ to. But I don't want to get lazy, either…I'll figure it out! I'll let you know?" Hannelore put a finger to her smile.

I should probably mention: if you ever want to be filthy rich, just be staff for a government company that was tried for war crimes against the United Nations. Hannelore's monetary settlement was nothing close to the guys further up the management food chain, but if she invested right, she was set for life.

"Are you two in a hurry?" Hannelore asked. "I can give you a ride to the train station, if you want."

"We don't need it," I said pointedly. "But if you want a chance to drive your new toy…"

"The Lexus is _not_ a toy!" Hannelore said bashfully. "She's Lexi, my new friend, and she'll be taking over your room until you come back, so I expect you to be nice."

Hannelore put on her shoes and brought us to her new car, in the parking garage. Because we're those fancy people that live in a hip neighborhood and have parking garages. I know: I'd hate me too. Ain't even mad at you.

Lucy and I threw our bags in the trunk and piled in, both of us in the back seat and Pika riding shotgun. A thawing spring world raced by my tinted, classy window. The Village hipsters sat at their cafes and read their fancy literature, made-up café managers yelled up at made-up patrons, and so the world went.

"Can you turn this news radio stuff off?" Lucy asked. Hannelore waited for my answer, eyeing me from her rear-view mirror. I nodded. I'd hear about how Amber was running the Johto government and brokering peace with Hoenn until the next election some other way.

God, it was impossible _not_ to know Amber McCall's name. Her head was plastered on every magazine in the city, and likely over the country.

I saw a picture of her and her mother on the cover of _Forbes_ the other day, as a matter of fact. I clipped the picture and stuffed it in my wallet.

We pulled into the train station after a few forays with infamous city traffic and only two near-death experiences, a new Hannelore record! "Oh, hush," Hannelore laughed.

Lucy took our bags out of the trunk, then shook my sister's hand all adult-like. "I'll take care of her, Hanna-B," Lucy said. "You've got nothing to worry about! I _am_ a world traveler, after all. See my hat? 'Made in Unova'." She folded her arms and winked. "I'm just that good."

"Just don't take Sam _to_ Unova," Hannelore said, not-really-jokingly. I had told her, we were only exploring Johto, and _maybe_ the Pokemon League if we had the time. I had to be back for school in a week, after all.

"Hey, there's a familiar face," Lucy pointed across the parking lot. "Isn't he that one guy?"

Yes, Lucy. He was that one guy.

I ran to 'that one guy' and, like he did every time he had seen me since the Goldenrod Incident, he wrapped me in his arms and spun me around. Because I'm not _that _big, apparently. Good to know!

Henry planted a kiss on my lips. I had to push him away, but again, touching his chest was counter-intuitive. "Henry, my sister is watching," I warned.

"And your friend, apparently," Henry joked. "You're ready to go?"

"Yes, sir. Ticket purchased, spending cash and road map outlined. I'm on a master quest, and I want the whole world to see."

"Conner's phone works okay? You're getting messages fine?"

"_Yes_, Henry. Yeesh, first you don't want to date me, then you get your head on straight and can't get enough of me..."

"And you'll never let me live that down, will you?" He asked somewhat sincerely. I told him not to worry about it, that if I were leading a resistance against aliens I wouldn't have time to date anybody either, but our golden boy was still beating himself up about it.

Granted, he was still Henry, captain of humor. "But for the love of God, don't message me _every_ day. I'll be busy."

He would be, too!

…See, this isn't some perfect ending for everyone.

Amber's brother and father were never found. Them or their bodies, but that's just my interpretation.

Conner moved out of his dungeon, and though he's got gainful employment and everything, we're still his only friends.

And keeping with a theme, Henry's dad hates Hammo, and everything else Pokemon, with a passion.

But hey, Henry's thing was that he had too much going on. The Unseen were taking his free time. He couldn't hold me and squeeze me tight, and he couldn't be a Pokemon Trainer. That said, he had since gotten _very_ good at holding me and keeping me warm.

"I'll write you when I get to New Bark Town," Henry said. He beeped my nose with his pointer finger. "And I'll get you a sweater after I've got a Pokedex. Big and baggy, the way you like it."

"You'd better!"

"Sam_an_tha!" Lucy bellowed. She had cupped her hands around her mouth. "We're gonna miss our train! Unless you want to _walk_ to Ecruteak City, get in gear! Let's _go!_"

I didn't want to let go of Henry, truth be told. Everyone always talks about how hard it is to get a boyfriend in the first place. Ever try being separated from one? It's the _pits_.

I pulled myself away from Henry…Then he pulled me back and kissed me.

He pushed me away…and then I pulled him back and kissed _him_.

"We're doing this wrong," I laughed.

He replied smugly: "Yes, I believe we are." He removed his arms robotically this time, then took several mechanical steps away from me. I followed his cue and moved away, back toward Lucy and Hannelore.

…Okay, so then I ran back, kissed him once more for the road, and then ran to Lucy. I pulled my backpack on and my duffel bag over my shoulders, then threw myself into a Hannelore hug without warning.

While Hannelore was busy saying something about giving her warning, I told the truth: "Thank you. For everything."

"Of course," she said simply. "What are sisters for?"

We let go, with the same amount of difficulty as with Henry but a lot less personal sabotage…and then Lucy and I were on the train, watching Goldenrod City pass by. Pika resting on my lap, Lucy's Eeve napping on hers, and nothing for miles.

...David had asked me, when our apartment building was coming down, if I was running again.

I wasn't running. Not by a long shot.

When I ran from Saffron, I had problems I could not solve. At the core, I had to deal with myself: my loneliness, my hate and my self-loathing. It crushed me, and I still believe that if I hadn't escaped when I did, I would not have survived. The Boss might not have killed me, but I still would not have _survived_.

Leaving Goldenrod City, I still have friends. I can visit Conner whenever I feel like, and Henry is one email away. Amber might not be physically around for right now, but seeing as how she set me and my sister up like she did, I couldn't complain. And Hannelore would keep my room exactly like it is, right now, until I came home.

Soon, all of us would be back together again.

Saffron City, if I ever chose to visit, would just be another place to go back to.

Goldenrod City was my home, and I would return. My family was waiting for me.

End.

* * *

Thank you for reading. Writing this story has truly been an experience, and I would not trade it for the world. To you who made it this far and stuck with Samantha until the very end, I am _so _grateful and honored.

I hope to see you again sometime.


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